


Vengeance is Mine

by TiyeTiye



Category: Vikings (TV)
Genre: 1920's, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Prohibition Era, Blood Eagle, Blood and Gore, Modern Era, Modern Retelling, Multi, Other, Prohibition, Rum Running
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-26
Updated: 2017-09-12
Packaged: 2018-12-07 07:39:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 29,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11619012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TiyeTiye/pseuds/TiyeTiye
Summary: After the death of his father Ragnar, Ivar Lothbrok plots with his brothers to avenge their father's death and carve a kingdom out of 1920's America's criminal underworld.





	1. Medicine

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Nylon Stockings](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11132898) by [StarsBurst](https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarsBurst/pseuds/StarsBurst). 



It was the height of summer, the cicadas were buzzing, and Ivar Lothbrok, sitting alone in the cemetery next to All Saints Baptists Church in Winfall, North Carolina was well on his way to getting good and drunk. He had a half empty whiskey bottle in one hand and another in the saddlebags of his motorcycle if he needed it. He told himself that it was good for him, that the whiskey would help dull the pain in his legs and make him sharper for what was soon to happen.

From his spot leaning against a rough granite headstone he could just barely see over the cemetery wall. He could make out people from about their elbows up, smiling and greeting each other like they would on any other fine summer day. The tops of dusty Model-T’s went back and forth down the road like everything was normal. A man in a grey suit appeared, knelt down and disappeared behind the wall, and when he stood back up again he had a small boy with obscenely red hair sitting on his shoulders. The boy giggled and laughed and practically _screamed_ with joy as the suit man tickled his ribs with one hand. Ivar scowled and took another drink. 

A man in a dark suit appeared next, and it took Ivar a moment to get his eyes focused enough to make out the badge on the man’s blue uniform. A cop then, but not one he recognized. His family had enough of the city’s cops on the take that the thought of getting arrested for having the whiskey didn’t worry him, but the fact that there could be new men on the force was something worth noting. It wouldn’t do for one of the Lothbrok brothers to be brought in by some guy trying to be a fucking hero when their plans were so close to being finished. 

The officer kept his eyes on Ivar as he made his way along the churchyard, like a man edging his way past a rabid dog he thinks might be looking to bite him. The way a man looks at a rabid dog that needs to be put down. Ivar knew what he must look like - disheveled clothes, liquor bottle in his hand, Colt .45 at his hip, and though the cop looked as though he’d like nothing better than to try his luck and drag Ivar before a judge he kept his mouth shut and kept walking. Until Ivar decided to have a little fun. 

“What’s the matter officer?!” Ivar shouted at him, meeting his hostile gaze and hoisting his whiskey bottle in the cop’s direction in a mocking toast. “Can’t you see I’m a cripple and I need to take my medicine?!”

The cop stiffened and turned to shout back at him. “Look here Lothbrok, you know damn well this here’s a dry county, yet there you sit, plain as day, breaking the law in a damn churchyard!” 

“Oh but I am not breaking the law officer! I have _many_ letters from my family doctor saying that I need this whiskey to kill the pain in my legs. He said I need to drink until the pain goes away, and you might have heard that my legs can be _quite_ painful! And as you probably know I’ve had _such a loss_ recently, Doc said I might need more to cope with all the grief and suffering.” Ivar smirked, toasted him again, and took another drink. 

The cop was beginning to turn red now. “One of these days Lothbrok, you and every one of your damn brothers is going to get just what you deserve! We’re going to drag you before a judge, throw the damn book at you, lock you in a cell and throw away the key! Let’s see if you can still get your _medicine_ then Boneless!” 

The mocking smile fell from Ivar’s face and his free hand shifted until it was casually resting next to his .45. When he spoke again his voice held the promise of a knife edge, brass knuckles, and dark, deep water. “Call me that again and you’ll see what happens to people that think they can insult me.” 

The cop had come closer to the wall now, and from the way he’d shifted his stance Ivar could tell that he had his hand on his gun. Ivar’s own fingers crept closer and closer to his .45, until the moment was broken by the honking of a blood red Chrysler and the voice of his brother Ubbe. 

“Ivar! There you are!”

The cop jerked as though he’d been shocked by a wire and dropped his hand from his gun. His eyes moved away from Ivar in the cemetery to take in his oldest brother Ubbe coming towards him down the sidewalk at a fast clip with another brother, Sigurd, not far behind. Ivar’s slightly whiskey-addled mind couldn't help but notice the cop’s now slightly panicked expression and he laughed a bit to himself. _So much for Officer Tough Guy,_ he thought _._ The cop might have thought that one Lothbrok brother was worth a shot taking on, but two at once would never happen, and three was just suicide.

“Officer! Good morning!” Ubbe called. He closed the last of the distance to Officer Tough Guy and grabbed his gun hand in a firm handshake, an icy smile on his face. “I don’t believe we’ve had the pleasure yet - I’m Ubbe Lothbrok, Officer…..?”

By now Sigurd had come to stand behind Ubbe, and the cop’s wide eyes made it quite clear that he would have liked nothing better than to disappear through the pavement, but Ubbe still had not let go of his hand. Ivar saw him swallow hard before he choked out a reply.

“Officer Kelly.” He tried to pull his hand away but Ubbe just gripped it harder and shook it again. 

 “Officer Kelly! Officer Kelly, now who’s your commanding officer, might I ask?”

 “Sergeant Walsh.”

 “Oh Sergeant Walsh! I know Sergeant Walsh, he’s an old friend of the family, has been since before I was born. I’m sure he’ll be _so thankful_ to hear about how you helped to find my baby brother, Officer Kelly. He’s had a bit of a rough time of it since our mother’s death - they were quite close, you know - and I would hate to think of what might have happened to him if you weren’t here.”

Ivar laughed at that and took another drink from his bottle as Ubbe shot him a warning glare. Officer Kelly tried again to pull his hand out of Ubbe’s grip and gave one last try at playing the lawman.

“Now Mr. Lothbrok, your brother here is _clearly_ \- ”

“ _Clearly_ my brother is ill and has been for his entire life.” Ubbe pulled him back in to the handshake and used his other to grip the man’s elbow, while Sigurd stepped out to to box him in against the churchyard wall, one hand casually placed in the pocket of his suit jacket. Ivar thought the cop was starting to look a bit pale. 

“Now Officer Kelly,” Ubbe continued, “You wouldn’t deny a poor boy the _one thing_ that makes his life bearable, would you? Not very Christian of you, if you don’t mind my saying so. Romans, Chapter 15, Verse 1: ‘We who are strong ought to bear the failings of the weak _and not to please ourselves_.’ That’s all I’m asking, Officer Kelly, just a bit of Christian charity for my dear baby brother here. Can you do that for us?”   

Officer Kelly’s eyes darted from Sigurd on one side of him, to Ivar in the churchyard, down to Ubbe’s white knuckled-hands, and finally up to Ubbe’s face, still with that same icy smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. He swallowed again and nodded. 

“Good.” Ubbe finally released his grip, giving Officer Kelly a slight shove away from him, so that the man stumbled a bit before finding his footing on the uneven pavement. He tried to salvage a bit of dignity, giving the hem of his uniform jacket a sharp yank to straighten it out before standing up straight and turning back to Ubbe. 

“You see that he goes straight home now, Mr. Lothbrok, and that he stays there.”

“Oh sure Officer, we will do just that,” Ubbe said, touching his fingers to the brim of his hat in a mock salute. “Bit of bedrest and he’ll be right as rain.” He placed a hand on Sigurd’s shoulder, turning him around and pushing him towards the cemetery gate. Ubbe turned to follow, but called back over his shoulder at Officer Kelly one last time. “And do give my regards to Sergeant Walsh, won’t you? We’re _so_ looking forward to having him over for dinner this Sunday.”

The cop stared daggers in Ubbe’s back, shot Ivar one last warning glare, then stormed off and was gone. By that time, Sigurd had made it to where Ivar was sitting. 

“Ivar, you’re a mess. Come on, it’s time to leave.” 

“Ah, ladies and gentlemen, here he is!” Ivar shot back, taking another drink before throwing his arms wide, “Sigurd the Snake, he finally remembered he has a family so now he’s come to rescue his poor, crippled brother!”

“You wouldn’t need rescuing if you weren’t such a constant mess Ivar. What are you even doing here?” 

“I came to pay my respects,” Ivar said, gesturing at the headstone he was still leaning against, “As you should too _brother_. I’ve come here quite often, but never once have I seen you.” He made a tsk-tsk sound and took another drink. 

Sigurd rolled his eyes and ran a hand through his hair. “For Christ sake Ivar! We don’t have time to do this now! Harald and Halfdan are going to get here in a few hours, so you need to get home, take a bath, and sober the hell up so we can all make the meeting without you looking like something the cat dragged in!” 

 By that time Ubbe had finally picked his way through the headstones and joined them. 

“What’s going on?” he asked. 

“I was just wondering how Sigurd the Snake here still manages to call himself our brother.” Ivar took another angry drink from his bottle and threw his next words at Sigurd. “You have been silent ever since I demanded revenge against that blonde bitch that took our mother from us. What kind of a son are you, hmm?” 

“Oh she was my mother too, was she?” Sigurd shot back. “Thank you for reminding me, Ivar, because ever since you were born I got _nothing_ from her. She _only_ ever had eyes for you and the rest of us were just left to fend for ourselves!” 

“Who gives a shit!? She was still your _mother_!” 

Sigurd scoffed. “You would say that wouldn’t you? Your whole life, everything you ever wanted, you got, she made sure of it. Mommy’s boy. Mommy’s little favorite. Are you just really sad that she can't breastfeed you anymore, is that it?”

Ivar screamed and threw his whiskey bottle at Sigurd’s head. He dodged and it exploded into diamonds against the cemetery wall behind him. Ivar’s hand went next for the .45 at his hip and as drew he had a moment of satisfaction at seeing Sigurd’s eyes widen in fear before Ubbe grabbed his arm and drove both it and the gun into the ground. 

“Alright, that’s enough!” the oldest Lothbrok brother shouted. Ivar tried to raise the gun again but Ubbe slammed his fist against the headstone and he dropped it. “I said THAT’S ENOUGH.” Ubbe took Ivar’s gun, placed it in his own jacket pocket and stood up, breathing hard and glaring at each of them. “What the hell’s the matter with you two! You’re supposed to be brothers! Sigurd, stop antagonizing him! And Ivar, I promise you _we will get revenge on Lagertha,_ but that can only happen _after_ we’re done avenging Father!”   

“Spare me your promises, you fucking coward!” Ivar spat. “I had the shot before, but you wouldn't let me take it! Why should I believe you now?!” 

Ubbe sighed and knelt down on the grass next to him. “Because I am your brother. Because Father made me promise to always have your back. I didn't let you take the shot before because there were _witnesses_ Ivar. It wasn’t the right time. Her people were there and neither of us would have made it out alive.” 

“I don’t care.”  

“Well I do, so too bad. The right time _will come_ Ivar, but for now _we have to go._ For Father. Alright?” 

Ivar shot a look over at Sigurd, who was giving him a look that was the twin of Officer Kelly’s. Like he was a rabid dog that needed to be put down. 

“Fine,” Ivar said. “Let’s go.” 

 “Good man.” Ubbe clapped him on the shoulder and smiled. “Where’s your motorcycle?” 

 “Parked it out back.” Ivar gestured behind him and if Ubbe craned his neck he could just make out the handlebars of Ivar’s custom made three-wheeled Harley Davidson motorcycle. 

 “Great,” Ubbe said, standing up and dusting off his pant legs. “I’ll ride it home for you and Sigurd will take you in the car. You're in no shape to drive yourself.” 

 “No.” Sigurd cut in, still eyeing Ivar warily. “I’ll take it home. Give me your keys.”

 Ivar cocked his head to the side and gave Sigurd a look that said ‘ _What’s the matter big brother, you scared of the cripple?’_ but he dug his keys out of his pocket anyway and tossed them at Sigurd only a little harder than he had to. 

 Ubbe looked from Ivar to Sigurd and back again, but he nodded and seemed satisfied with what he saw. “See you at home,” he said to Sigurd and gestured Ivar towards the cemetery gate. 

 “Right,” Sigurd nodded at Ubbe, put the motorcycle keys in his pocket, and walked away. Ubbe began to bend down, as though to give Ivar a hand up, but the youngest Lothbrok brother waved him off. Ivar grabbed his crutches, boosted himself up on the headstone until his leg braces could bear his weight, and began to hobble towards the gate and the waiting Chrysler, with only a few wobbles from all the whiskey. 

 Behind him, unseen, Ubbe pulled the white carnation out of his lapel, laid it on the headstone, rested a hand on the sun-warmed granite for a moment, and then followed. 

 Out on the street, people unconsciously moved out of Ivar’s way as he cut a path towards the family car. It was always like that he went out in public - a parting of the seas around him. People could see he was a cripple, people knew of his temper, and people knew he was a _Lothbrok,_ so no one wanted to get in his way. He always heard their whispers though - 

 

_“I heard it was polio when he was a kid…”_

_“I thought he was born with it..?”_

_“Mommy, what’s wrong with that man..?”_

_“It is punishment from the Good Lord for_ _sin_ _I tell you. That whole family is_ _steeped in sin_ _…Their Mama was good though, bless her heart…”_

 

Ivar scowled as he opened the car door, wriggled into the passenger seat, and slammed it behind him. Before Ubbe could hit the gas and speed them away, Ivar took a last look back at the headstone he’d been leaning against. It was new, still shiny from the stonemason’s, with flowering heather blossoms carved up the sides and three lines carved deep into its face: 

 

ASLAUG LOTHBROK

BELOVED WIFE AND MOTHER

1887 - 1928


	2. Wash It All Away

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Suicidal Thoughts and Attempted Suicide

Sitting in the steaming tub, Ivar’s head was starting to pound - the pleasantly numb, swaying feeling he’d found halfway down a whiskey bottle was beginning to wear off and now his senses were coming back with a vengeance, promising to bring a monster of a hangover in their wake. The light in his bathroom was too bright, the bustle and hubbub of the house around him was too loud, and now the headache was coming on. Perfect. Just fucking perfect. Plus, the water was hot - almost too much. He’d overheard Ubbe talking to the servants in his bathroom, as he was stripping out of his filthy clothes and putting on his bathrobe, asking them to make it extra hot so he could “sweat it out in a hurry.” The scalding temperature wasn’t doing a damn thing for his developing hangover but it did soothe the ache in his legs a little. 

Ivar leaned farther back in the cast iron tub until just his face was above the water’s surface and closed his eyes. Now it was quiet. The water in his ears drowned out the noises of the house around him and all he could hear was his heartbeat and the steady whoosh of his breathing. This almost felt nice. The water temperature was getting bearable and was moving towards relaxing. He took another deep breath -in and then out. God, he was tired. He tried to remember the last time he’d gotten a decent night’s sleep, but couldn’t. Not since Lagertha’s women had shown him where they’d buried his mother. Not since the day he’d said goodbye to his father in the little room in Ecbert’s house. Probably not since he’d left for the voyage to New York with his father - the day he’d kissed his mother goodbye and dragged himself down the docks and onto his father’s little ship, off on the voyage of vengeance that his stupid mind had thought was going to make him a man. Yes, not since then. 

Ivar took another deep breath and sank even lower in the tub. Yes, this did feel nice, almost peaceful - another feeling Ivar wasn’t too familiar with lately. Or perhaps he never really had been. Before, there was always his mother’s constant worrying about him and her inescapable, suffocating, ensnaring love, his father’s neglect, abandonment, and then murder, his always struggling to keep up with his brothers, to earn his place as a son of Ragnar and be seen as one of them instead of “Little Ivar”, having to constantly battle in town to be treated as a real person, as a _man,_ instead of the Lothbrok’s cripple, and over it all the constant ever-present _pain._ Whether sharp and stabbing or dull and aching it was always there and it _never_ , _ever_ _stopped_.It was almost too much. It _was_ too much. 

Maybe……maybe he should just be done……..maybe he should just quit fighting……. That might be better……… Just to let it all go. 

Ivar slowly took his hands away from the rim of the tub and slipped beneath the surface of the water. 

If whatever came next was like this, this warm, dark, floating nothingness, then that might be okay. He knew from church on Sundays and Floki’s stories that suicides were supposed to go to Hell, and while for most of his life Ivar had held a fear of the flames like any good Baptist, he wasn't sure he believed that anymore. His mother had been the saintliest woman he knew, running the family business in his father’s absence, constantly organizing charity events, volunteering at church functions, giving to poor houses and foundling hospitals, all while taking care of him and doing everything she could to ease his pain, and she’d still wound up lying dead in the street, shot in the back, with her beautiful face covered in mud. If God could do that to her, why did He deserve Ivar’s faith?

 

_boom——boom….boom——boom_

 

Ivar’s heart was beginning to pound and his chest felt tight, but he pushed the thought away. 

Maybe he would just go to purgatory instead? Maybe, after enduring a lifetime of suffering and choosing to end it all, God would show mercy on him, meet him in the middle so to speak, and just send him to purgatory? Ivar thought he’d heard that purgatory was supposed to be a great nothingness, and that was fine. Ivar could do nothingness. 

 

_boom——boom……boom——boom_

 

He couldn't imagine anyone would miss him, not really. Ivar knew that he could be difficult to get along with, and even more difficult to care for. Yes, his family would be better off without him. Bjorn wouldn't miss him - he’d come to Ivar’s funeral out of a sense of family duty, but that would probably be it. Sigurd wouldn't miss him, would probably be glad to be rid of him in fact. Ivar was almost certain of that. Hvitserk might miss him for a little while, if only because Ivar had been his frequent companion at the shooting range and at the speakeasy. And Ubbe….. Ubbe would be fine. Maybe it would take him a while, but he would be fine. Ivar had seen the way Ubbe looked at Margrethe, the blond woman who worked for the family at Haraldson’s Hotel, and the way she looked back at him. Ubbe hadn't asked for this responsibility of having to take care of Ivar, and he deserved to have something in his life for himself. Something that made him happy. Yes, Ubbe would be fine. 

 

_BOOM——BOOM……BOOM——BOOM_

 

Maybe Ivar would get to see his mother again, somehow. As much as she’d smothered him when she’d been alive, Ivar had still loved her with everything he had, as well as he knew how, and now he missed her so much it made his chest ache. Yes, if he could see her again somehow, someway, that might be good. And his father too. His father….

 

_BOOM——BOOM……BOOM——BOOM_

 

Ivar wasn't sure if he wanted to see his father again or not. The man had abandoned him, abandoned his entire family. Ran off to God knows where for ten fucking years after the disastrous raids in New Orleans, when his Uncle Rollo had betrayed them for a slice of the French Quarter action and a French whore. Ten years Ragnar was gone. Ivar had thought he’d hated him, had spent years stoking that fire and feeding that hate, until the day the man had waltzed back into town and it was as though Ivar had found something he’d thought was forever lost. Maybe it would be good to see his father again. 

 

**_BOOM——BOOM……BOOM——BOOM…… BOOM——BOOM……BOOM——BOOM……BOOM——BOOM……BOOM——BOOM……BOOM——BOOM_ **

 

Floating there in the warm water, heart pounding and chest ready to burst, Ragnar’s voice came unbidden to Ivar’s mind. 

_“Don’t be stupid……I don’t want you to die. It is far more important that you stay alive…… People think that you are not a threat, but I know differently…… Shut up and listen, idiot…...Use your anger intelligently, and I promise you my son that one day the whole world will know and fear Ivar the Boneless. Happiness is nothing, you must seek revenge…..Everyone will always underestimate you. You must make them pay for it. Be ruthless……”_

Ivar exploded up into the air. He threw both arms over the tub until he could rest by his shoulders, coughing and retching, and finally sucking down great lungfuls of the waning summer day. As his breathing calmed down and his chest stopped heaving he rested his head against the rim of the tub and stared up at the ceiling, his father’s voice still echoing in his mind. _Be ruthless….._

“Fine, old man. I will,” Ivar whispered. 

A knock at the door broke the spell and banished Ragnar’s ghost.

“What!?” Ivar yelled at the door. It opened to reveal the face of his brother Hvitserk. 

“Can I come in? I bring gifts.” 

“What do you mean, you bring gifts?” Ivar asked with a groan, running a hand over his face. The lights were back to stabbing into his eyes again. Hvitserk held up a small glass pill bottle in one hand and a glass of sweet tea in the other. 

“Brought you something for your head.” 

“Fine. Come in.”

“Good man.”

Hvitserk came in and handed Ivar the bottle of aspirin. He raised his eyebrows when Ivar shook five pills out of the bottle, but said nothing as Ivar swallowed them all in one go, seemingly content to sit on the small bench next to the tub and study him with curious, sympathetic eyes. If he’d heard Ivar’s earlier gasping breaths or noticed the water all over the floor he said nothing. Ivar kept staring at the ceiling in the hopes that Hvitserk might consider his good deed to be done and leave him alone, but no such luck. Finally, Ivar turned to look at him.

“What?”

“Are you okay, Ivar?”

“I’m fine.” 

“That’s not what I asked.”

“Then what do you think?”

“I think you’d be sobering up in jail right now if Ubbe and Sigurd hadn’t found you at the cemetery in time.” 

Ivar shifted to stare at the ceiling again. “I had it under control.”

“That’s not what I heard.” 

Ivar glared at him again. “Then what exactly did you hear Hvitserk, hmm? Why don’t you tell me precisely what you want me to say, so I can say it, and you can go away?” 

Hvitserk sighed and rubbed his hands down his face. He leaned over to rest his forearms on his knees, bringing his face closer to Ivar’s scowl. 

“Ivar… where did you disappear to today?”

“I went for a ride. I needed to get out of the house. I needed to…turn things off for a while.”

“Right…. Right.… Explains why Sigurd rode your bike home.” 

“I guess.” 

“He said he thought it was running strange, by the way.” 

Ivar sighed. “I know. I think I blew something on the highway outside of town. I’ll take it over to Floki’s later.” 

“How fast do you think you were going?”

“I don't know, maybe seventy?”

“Nice.” 

“Yeah.” Hvitserk gave him a tiny smile and Ivar managed a quick one in return. “I went to see Mother for a while.” 

Hvitserk’s eyes darkened again. “How was she?” 

Ivar sighed. “She was fine. The new headstone looks nice.” 

“Good. That’s good.”

“Yeah.”

Hvitserk looked like he was trying to work himself up to saying something, but couldn't precisely find the words. 

“Look Ivar….We need you on this one. All of us. I know Ubbe is worried about you, and Sigurd too even though he’d rather eat his own tongue than admit it. Even Bjorn asked about you this morning. All I’m saying is, we don’t need you to be great, or even be good. But we do need you to be okay. If we’re going to pull this off, get these deals to go through, and avenge Father, we’re going to need your help. Can you do that? At least try?” 

Ivar looked into Hvitserk’s eyes for a long moment and saw nothing in them that would point to a lie. 

“Alright.” He lifted his right hand out of the water and Hvitserk grabbed it to shake. 

“Alright.” Hvitserk gave him a genuine smile then, the kind he used to wear all the time, but nowadays seemed to have lost. “Ah, I almost forgot!” He sprang up off the bench andstrode towards the door. “I have one more gift for you,” he called back over his shoulder.Hvitserk disappeared out into the hall and reappeared holding a tall glass of a thick, orange liquid. 

“Aw, come on!” Ivar whined, seeing what Hvitserk had brought him. 

“No whining, little brother,” Hvitserk chided. “I made this one just for you. You’ve had your fun, so now it’s time to take your medicine. Come on, doctor’s orders.” He passed Ivar the glass and Ivar gingerly took it, peering at its dubious contents. There were strange tiny chunks in it, it had an oily film on its surface, and for some ungodly reason, it was hot. 

“What do you even put in these things?”

“Whatever I feel like at the time, now drink up.”

Ivar took a small sip from the glass and almost threw up. He tried to hand it back to Hvitserk, but his brother stepped away. 

“That’s enough. Take it back,” he asked. 

“Nope, sorry. Ubbe wants to leave for the meeting in half an hour, so better finish it. Besides, it’ll make you feel better.” 

“It’ll make me throw up.”

“Yeah, but then you’ll feel better.” 

“I really hate you sometimes.”

“Quit stalling, down the hatch.”

“Fuck you, Hvitserk.”

“Oh come on Ivar, quit being a little bitch and just drink it already.” 

Ivar growled at him in exasperation, but then tilted the glass back and drained it in three long gulps. He slammed the glass down on the bench beside the tub and turned to glare at Hvitserk again. 

“There, you happy?”

Hvitserk smiled. “Not just yet, but give it a second.” 

Ivar just managed to finish rolling his eyes at his older brother before his stomach betrayed him. Clamping his lips shut, he surged over the rim of the tub, and yanked a small trash bin out from under the bench. Hvitserk smiled as he watched Ivar be violently sick into it, his body getting rid of Hvitserk’s hangover cure, the last of the whiskey, and everything he’d had to eat that morning. Once he had finished, Ivar stayed draped over the rim of the tub, groaning, his body dripping even more water onto the floor, the trash bin still clutched in his hands like a lifeline. 

Hvitserk laughed. “Now I’m happy.” Ivar groaned at him and spat into the trashcan. 

“Up you get little brother. Better go get dressed. Car’s leaving in twenty!” 

Ivar snarled and flipped him the bird, but by the time he looked up all that was left of Hvitserk was his laughter echoing down the hall. 


	3. Hungry Coyotes

Ivar rode in the backseat of the Chrysler with his window down, the summer breeze on his face doing its best to banish any lingering traces of nausea leftover from Hvitserk’s maniacal hangover cure. Hvitserk was in front of him in the front passenger seat and Ubbe was driving, while Sigurd and Bjorn went ahead of them in Bjorn’s car. Ivar noticed that although Ubbe’s face was calm, he was taking his turns just a bit sharper than normal and he was gripping the steering wheel so hard Ivar could count the tendons in each of his hands. After a particularly violent left turn Ivar finally spoke up. 

“Ubbe, none of us are going to get to avenge Father if you flip the car and kill us all on the way.” 

Ubbe’s eyes darted up at Ivar in the mirror, and while he didn't say anything, he at least had the grace to look embarrassed and slow down. 

Haraldson’s Hotel was maybe only a ten minute drive from the Lothbrok family home, so the brothers made it to the meeting with time to spare. Bjorn and Sigurd found a parking spot by the entrance, but Ubbe turned onto a side street and parked the Chrysler a few spot away from a silver-gray Cadillac - Lagertha’s. Technically, Ragnar had never been declared officially dead after the fateful trip to New York, because his body had never been found, and without a death certificate none of his property could be transferred to his heirs. According to Ubbe and Sigurd, Lagertha had turned up the day his mother’s body had been found and “volunteered” to “help run” Ragnar’s old businesses until all of the legalities could be resolved in clerk’s offices and courtrooms. Ivar was pretty damn positive that Lagertha was doing everything she could to make sure that she would be “volunteering” for the rest of her life. Ragnar had never written a will, so Lagertha hired her own team of lawyers to press Bjorn’s claim as the eldest son, moved into the penthouse suite of the hotel, filled the staff with her own chosen women, and Ivar was pretty sure she also had he and his brothers followed. 

As they walked past the Cadillac towards the hotel entrance, Ubbe turned and spat on the windshield. Ivar, close behind, took a swing with one of his crutches and knocked off the silver hood ornament. It sailed through the air and bounced in the street a few times before disappearing down a storm drain. Hvitserk laughed at the sight and even Ubbe chuckled, but they all quieted down once they turned the corner and saw Bjorn and Sigurd waiting for them by the entrance. 

“Everyone ready?” Bjorn asked.

“Yes indeed,” Hvitserk answered, stifling a laugh. Bjorn gave him an perplexed look, but turned to lead the way up the granite steps and through the wooden doors.

Haraldson’s Hotel was a four-story building made of dark brick, and it seemed to Ivar that it must have stood in that spot on Main Street since the town was founded. Except for Bjorn, each of them had practically grown up within its walls. Ragnar had “bought” the building and all its businesses after the “death” of its old owner, Earl Haraldson, and just never bothered to change the name. He used to say it made things easier.

Torvi was manning the front desk as the brothers walked in to the lobby. She waved at Bjorn and he smiled and stopped to chat with her while the rest of the brothers waited. 

“Evening darling, you seen my mother around?” he asked.

“Oh I suspect she’s probably back in the restaurant with Astrid.” 

“Thanks. Harald and Halfdan make it yet?”

“No, you beat them here.”

“Good. Kids at home?” 

“Guthrum’s probably with your Mama but the little ones are all upstairs in the penthouse with the nanny.”

“Good. Make sure they stay up there. Harald and Halfdan should be here soon.”

She nodded, face serious, and pulled a small silver Derringer out of her pocket. “Right. Taking no chances.”

“Exactly. That’s my girl.”

Ubbe cut in. “Bjorn, if you don’t mind?” he called from across the lobby. “We came here for a reason, didn't we?”

Bjorn gave Torvi an apologetic smile. “See you later.”

She smiled back and gave him a quick kiss before slipping her Derringer back in her pocket. “Good luck.” 

Bjorn gestured and the brothers cut across the lobby and into the restaurant in the next room. It was an impressive space, holding about twenty round tables and with a long carved oak bar running down one wall. The front of it was carved with crashing waves and sailing ships, and Ivar knew that by pressing a certain knot in the wood on its back side that its shelves would collapse and send all of its illegal liquor crashing into a deep secret compartment built into the floor. He knew because he’d watched Ubbe and Bjorn install it when he was just a child.

The restaurant was only about half full at the moment, and the smell of fried catfish and green beans with bacon hit Ivar’s nose to remind him again of how empty his stomach was. Pretty Margrethe, the blond waitress, was across the room stacking up dirty dishes and wiping down a table. She saw them and blew Ubbe a kiss that made him blush so hard his ears turned red, but when he slowed down like he wanted to wind his way through the tables and go talk to her, Bjorn shoved him forward. 

“Ah, ah, ah - we’ve got someplace to be, remember Ubbe?” 

Margrethe giggled as Ubbe stumbled, but when her eyes locked with Ivar’s her smile disappeared and she abruptly turned back to re-wipe the tabletop. For a second he flashed back to their disastrous encounter that happened here in one of the hotel rooms and his ears went as red as Ubbe’s.

Lagertha was there, just as Torvi said she would be, sitting at her usual table in the back corner talking something over with Astrid while Guthrum devoured a dish of strawberry ice cream next to her. She smiled at Bjorn, and continued her conversation with Astrid, but her eyes never left Ivar or his brothers as they skirted around the tables and towards the back hallway, and she made no move to follow them. Bjorn had made it clear to her that the responsibility for avenging Ragnar would fall to his sons, and so far she had respected their choice, but Ivar still felt her eyes on his back. 

Behind the restaurant was a hallway that led to the large private dining room that Ragnar, and later Aslaug had used as an office to run the family’s little black market liquor kingdom. One wall was dominated by a large heavy desk, covered in maps, shipping schedules, and telegrams from various business contacts around the world. There was a small bookshelf in the corner behind it, loaded with account books, and a hearth along the far wall that was kept constantly lit no matter the weather. That way if Hoover’s Bureau of Investigation ever got curious about just what exactly was going on down at Haraldson’s, there would always be a quick way to get rid of any “sensitive materials.”

The center of the room held a long wooden table and Bjorn automatically moved to take the seat at its head. Hvitserk and Ivar took seats at his left and Ubbe and Sigurd filled in at his right hand. They didn't have long to wait before the noise from the restaurant died down and they heard heavy footsteps approaching. The door flew open to admit Harald Finehair and Halfdan the Black, followed by a panicked hotel bellboy. 

“I’m sorry sir,” he babbled to Bjorn. “I did ask them to wait sir, but they just-”

“It’s alright son, they’re welcome here, you can go,” Bjorn assured him. 

“Ah, my friends! It’s good to see you! It has been far too long.” Harald boomed, striding over to the table and slapping Bjorn and Ubbe on the back. 

“Yes it has, Harald. Thank you for coming,” Bjorn replied, standing up to shake his hand.

Ivar kept one eye on Halfdan while his brothers exchanged pleasantries with Harald. He was currently stalking slowly around the room studying each of the brothers in turn while Harald piled on the charm. The two brothers went everywhere together, and while Harald had perfected the politician’s fake warmth and insincere smile that promised nothing, Halfdan had never bothered with such niceties. Ivar also thought it quite possible the Halfdan was more than a little mad. 

Watching him go, Ivar was reminded of something he’d seen as a boy. He’d been out hunting with Ubbe, sitting high up in a deer stand looking out over an open meadow, and just as the sun was beginning to set they’d heard the howls of coyotes scenting prey. The yips and cries got closer and closer until a young doe burst out of the woods with the pack tearing after her. They’d got her surrounded not far from Ivar and Ubbe’s position, and while one coyote had drawn the doe’s attention, another had darted forward from the side of the circle and torn her throat out. 

That’s what the two of them were, Ivar thought as he watched Halfdan slowly slink around the table, a pair of hungry coyotes. Harald in his fine tan suit was the one who drew your attention and kept your eyes on him, all flash and bluster, but Halfdan in his shades of black and grey was the strike from the side that you never saw coming.

And oh, how they had devoured. In the years since they had joined his father Ragnar for his first attack on New Orleans, city after city had fallen under the brother’s control. The two of them would show up in a new city, ostensibly to talk business with the local big shot. Within a week however, the local boss would be found dead, usually stabbed in the back and found floating in the river. The local rum running network would collapse, and Harald would just conveniently be there to put everything back together again under his control. 

Ivar knew that they’d gotten their start in Savannah, Georgia, but over the years Harald and Halfdan had eaten their way steadily north up the coast until they controlled all of the liquor traders from Savanah to Wilmington, North Carolina. There was a rumor going around about Harald and some woman from Miami named Elaina - how he’d fallen in love with her, but she’d refused to marry him until he was powerful enough, until he was “King of the Carolinas.” The Lothbroks all knew that it was only a matter of time before Harald and Halfdan turned their eyes farther north to Winfall and the little kingdom they had built for themselves around the Outer Banks. 

By now Halfdan had completed his circuit of the room while Bjorn and Ubbe were still talking with Harald. Ivar watched as he took a small silver box out of his suit jacket pocket, withdrew a pinch of white powder from it, and snorted it up his nose with a quick inhale. Halfdan smiled when he noticed Ivar watching him, and offered him some cocaine, but Ivar declined. 

“Alright, come, come take a load off, I know you had to come a long way to get here,” Bjorn said, gesturing the brothers to seats at the other end of the table. “Can we get you a drink?”

“Yeah, Bourbon if you got it,” Harald said as he sank into a chair, smiling to reveal a few gold teeth and turning to Halfdan. “And you, brother?”

Halfdan gave Bjorn a half crazed grin and raised two fingers. “Make that two.” 

“Right, Sigurd - would you mind?” 

“Oh. Uh, sure.” Sigurd said, pushing himself back from the table. 

While his younger brother dug the right bottle out of the liquor cabinet concealed behind the bookshelf and brought everyone a glass, Bjorn got down to the business at hand. 

“My brothers and I want to thank you both again for coming here. Business such as this isn’t safe to trust to a letter or a telegram, so we appreciate you making the trip up from down south. My father always thought of the two of you as partners and allies and I’m glad that even after his death that bond with our family is still in place.” 

Harald raised the glass that Sigurd had brought him, the fine amber liquid catching the light. “Your daddy was a great man, Bjorn. He accomplished many great things. We shall never see his like again.” 

“Amen.” Halfdan added. 

“Amen,” agreed the other men as they toasted Ragnar and drank. 

Harald continued. “I was proud to call your daddy my friend when he was alive, and now I get to call his sons my friends as well,” he cast his eyes around the table at each of the Lothbrok’s, eyes lingering briefly on Ivar. “Of course we came.” 

“That’s good to hear. I take it you’ve heard a little about the…circumstances of our father’s death?” Bjorn asked. 

Harald leaned back in his chair and took another sip of Bourbon, face serious. “Yeah, we heard. Heard your daddy and your littlest brother here took a trip up to New York. Wrecked in a storm. Lost all the crew except for the two of you,” he said with a nod to Ivar. 

“Storm threw us up on the beach up near Far Rockaway,” Ivar said, remembering the waves that had nearly killed him. “Ecbert’s boys found Father and me not long after that.” 

“But how did you get away?” Halfdan asked taking a long sip of his drink. 

“I didn’t,” Ivar replied. “They let me go. Father knew that Ecbert was going to have to turn him over to Aelle and his men up in Boston, where he’d most likely get killed, but he convinced Ecbert to send me home.” Ivar gave Harald a predatory smile. “I suspect he thought there wouldn’t be much risk in sparing a man like me.” 

Harald gave him a gold-toothed grin. “And I suspect that you now intend to prove him wrong, young Ivar? Make Ecbert pay for what he did to your daddy?”

“I do indeed.” 

“We _all_ intend to make him pay, Harald,” Bjorn said, grabbing back the reins of the conversation. “Him and Aelle both for what they did. We intend to rain down hellfire and brimstone on the both of them for what they did to our father, but the question we have for you, the question you’ve come so far to hear us ask is, will you help us? The help of an…organization…such as yours would go a long way.” 

“I see…” Harald looked at his brother. Halfdan just shrugged at him and finished his Bourbon, smacking his lips as he set the glass back down on the table. “Yes, we’ll help,” Harald said. “Would be downright un-Christian of us to refuse help to our friends in their hour of need.” 

“Thank you,” Bjorn said, “That means a lot.” 

“Of course, of course. Whatever you need, you’ve just got to ask,” said Harald, waving away Bjorn’s thanks. “But I do wonder, young Bjorn, if by helping you and your brothers to avenge the death of your dearly departed daddy, if my brother and I might expect some…compensation… in return for our efforts?”

Ivar locked eyes with Ubbe across the table, each of them ready for the other shoe to drop. 

“What did you have in mind?” Bjorn asked. 

“Your family knows people down in Cuba, don’t they? Old friends of your daddy’s? Isn’t that where you get that excellent rum of yours?” Harald asked. 

“Yes.” Bjorn said slowly. 

“And I heard that you and young Hvitserk here went down to Galveston a while back. Met up with some folks that can get you some of that sweet Mexican tequila.”

“That’s true.” 

“And that your Uncle Rollo knows people over in France that can get their hands on some good champagne.” 

“My brothers and I are no longer on speaking terms with our uncle, Harald. If you want to talk to him you can find him yourself in New Orleans, but I’m afraid we won’t be able to help you there,” said Bjorn. 

“Ah, well, more’s the pity.” Harald finished his last sip of Bourbon and set down his glass. “But I’m sure a few introductions to your people in Havana and Galveston wouldn’t be too much to ask for? In return for Halfdan and me and our men joining your little war party?” 

“Not at all,” Bjorn agreed. “I’d be happy to make the introductions myself.”

“Good, good,” said Harald. “And I'm sure that some small financial compensation wouldn't be too much to ask? To help offset any costs to our organization and as a thank you to our men for taking on the extra job?”

Bjorn sighed. “What sort of compensation did you have in mind?”

“Oh, nothing too much. Say, fifteen thousand?”

Sigurd whipped his head around. “Fifteen thousand _dollars_!?” he asked, incredulous. Ubbe elbowed him hard in the ribs while Halfdan laughed.

Harald spread his hands. “My men are experienced and my organization is effective. Ecbert’s dug into New York’s underbelly worse than a tick on a coonhound, but if it’s going to be a problem…?” he asked, voice trailing off. 

“No, no, no,” Bjorn said, fake smile firmly in place. “It’s not going to be a problem at all.”

“Bjorn!” Sigurd shouted. 

Bjorn glared back at him, then turned back to Harald and Halfdan. “Excuse my little brother, gentlemen,” he apologized through gritted teeth. “Sometimes he _speaks_ before he _thinks_ about how he should really just keep his _dumb mouth shut_.” 

Harald smiled. “Yes, brothers can be like that.” Halfdan laughed and nodded. 

“Would you both mind giving us the evening to discuss your generous offer?” Bjorn asked. “We’ve got rooms made up for you upstairs, and anything you’d like from the bar or the restaurant would of course on the house. If it’s companionship you're looking for, I’m sure a girl or two could be found.” 

“Why thank you, young Bjorn, very kind of you, very kind,” said Halfdan, rising from his seat at the other end of the table. “We will leave you to discuss things with your brothers while we take advantage of your generous hospitality.” 

“Yes,” said Halfdan, following him out. “There’s a little blond thing out in the restaurant that looked particularly enticing.” 

Ubbe and Hvitserk whipped their heads up at that, and Ubbe looked like he meant to go after them, but Bjorn grabbed his shoulder before he could stand.

“ _Sit down,_ ” he ordered. 

“But Margrethe!” Ubbe protested. “If they touch her, I swear to God I’ll -”

“She’ll be fine, idiot. Lagertha and Astrid are out there too. They won’t let anything happen to her. Right now, we need to decide what to do about Harald and Halfdan’s offer.” 

“I still don't like it,” Sigurd said, crossing his arms.

“I’m not sure either,” Hvitserk agreed.

Ivar whipped his head around to sneer at his brothers, slamming his glass of Bourbon down onto the table. “What do you mean, _you don’t like it_?”

“I mean _he asks too much_ Ivar,” Sigurd said. “Fifteen thousand dollars _in cash_? Where the hell are we going to get that kind of money?!”

“We’ll find it somehow Sigurd,” Bjorn said from his spot at the head of the table. “Call in a few more debts, spend a day at the tracks in Greenville - we can get it.” 

“Oh sure, course we will, but how are we gonna keep control of the business once all this is done, hmm? How are we gonna hold on to our territory? When we’re giving away five grand here, and ten grand there, and now fifteen grand here? When we’re bankrupt and all our suppliers now belong to Harald and Halfdan and God knows who else?”

Ivar pounded his fist the table. “Dammit Sigurd, that was the deal! The one _you_ agreed to, remember? We call in favors, every single marker owed to us. We do deals with big shots and cops that we hate. Whatever we have to promise them, we _promise it,_ and in the end we assemble a fucking _army_ twice the size of the one our father took to New Orleans and we _avenge_ him!”

“And what use is an army going to be if we give away everything that we have here Ivar?! Everything that our father built?! What are we going to have left?!”

“What are we going to need _here_? Why would we want to _come back_?! Once we’ve avenged our father, then we keep moving! With that many men we could take ALL of New York! Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore - _it could all be ours_ Sigurd!” 

“You want to take all of New York?” Sigurd scoffed. “Bring down all _five_ of the Families? Not just Ecbert’s?” 

“Yes Sigurd,” Ivar snarled, “In the name of our dead father, and in the name of almighty God Himself we declare war on _all of them_.”

“You’re crazy.”

Ivar heaved himself upright and leaned over the table towards his brother. “That’s what you think, Sigurd. But you want to know what I think, hmm? I think, that you don’t really want to avenge our father.”

“You shut your mouth,” Sigurd warned in a low voice, but Ivar continued. 

“I think, that in addition to forgiving Lagertha for killing our mother,” Ivar shot a look at Bjorn at the head of the table, who was watching them over steepled fingers, “I think that you’re also ready to forgive Ecbert and his family for what they have done.”

“I said, shut your god damn mouth,” Sigurd growled, but Ivar didn’t stop.

“I think, Sigurd the Snake, that you are not worthy to call yourself a son of Ragnar. I think that you’d rather stay behind here at home like some sort of useless old woman instead of taking vengeance on the bastards who broke their promises to our family, slaughtered our people, and murdered our father you _spineless, yellow-bellied,_ _god damn fucking coward!_ ”

Sigurd launched himself upright and threw a punch at Ivar across the table, who dodged. Before he could take another shot Ubbe grabbed him in a bear hug and threw him bodily away from the table. Ivar had thrown his head back to get away from Sigurd’s blow, making it easy for Hvitserk to stand up and shove him backwards into his chair. The youngest brothers were getting ready for round two when Bjorn finally stood up.

“ENOUGH!” his voice thundered around the hall and the four other men grew quiet. “Sigurd, we are taking the deal. No - don’t argue - _we are taking the deal!_ We can’t pull this off without their men. We’ll find the money somehow and be ready for Harald and Halfdan to try anything. Understand?”

Sigurd gave an angry nod from where Ubbe had him pinned against the wall. 

Bjorn turned to Ivar next. “And Ivar, _shut the fuck up already_. How many battles have you fought in? How many runs have you made? How many times have you had to outrun the cops?” 

“I’m not a child,” Ivar sneered up at him from his chair.

“ _Then stop acting like one, you idiot._ What you have to learn Ivar is that if you break up this brotherhood, we will not succeed. Many challenges lie ahead and avenging our father and taking down all of Ecbert’s little kingdom is going to take _all of us._ But if you want to keep arguing and starting fights and whining like a little girl, then I suggest you leave.” Done with chiding, Bjorn took his seat back at the head of the table. 

Ivar straightened up in his chair. “But you do need me brother. Why do you think Father chose me to go with him to New York? He had a reason for doing so. He told me that _I_ was the one who would act for him. He told me that _I_ would be the one to make sure he was avenged.”

Bjorn gave him a cold smile. “If that’s what you want to think, little brother, then go right ahead.”

A loud knock on the door startled them all. Ubbe released Sigurd from his hold against the wall, straightened his clothes and called out “Come in!”

Slowly, the door opened, and a blond head popped into the room - it was Margrethe. Her eyes widened as she took in the tension between them, but then she smiled when she saw Ubbe. 

“Sorry to disturb you but the chef wanted me to let ya’ll know that your usual dinner is ready. Did you want me to bring it in here, or - ?”

“Oh no, don’t worry about it darling,” Ubbe said, smiling back at her, clearly relieved to see her, “we’ll come out to the restaurant and eat. No sense in making you do any more work.” 

Ubbe was first out the door, taking Margrethe’s hand in his, and leading her away. Hvitserk was next, staring after Ubbe and Margrethe and looking like he’d just been kicked in the stomach. Sigurd threw Ivar one last spiteful glare before grabbing his hat and following. Bjorn paused in the doorway to look back at Ivar, who still seething and staring at the fire. 

“Aren’t you coming?” he asked. 

Ivar reached for his crutches and shook his head. “No, you go on without me. I need to head over to Floki’s, my bike’s running funny.” 

“Suit yourself. I’ll have Guthrum run you back to the house to get it.”

“Thanks."

“You’re welcome.”

Ivar made it upright and hobbled around the table while Bjorn held the door open for him, and the two walked down the hall side by side and out into the restaurant. Ubbe, Hvitserk, and Sigurd were already seated at their usual table with glasses of sweet tea in front of them. Margrethe was standing beside Ubbe’s chair while he had one arm wrapped around her hips and she ran her fingers through his hair. Hvitserk was seated across the table from them, gnawing on a biscuit and trying but failing to hide his jealousy until a word from Lagertha made Margrethe jump and scurry back to work. Hvitserk caught Ivar’s eye from across the room and pulled out the chair next to him, but Ivar shook his head, made his way across the scuffed wooden floor, and out into the waning afternoon alone. 


	4. Nuts and Bolts and Bullets

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Swearing throughout, violence, bloodshed, gun violence, and gun deaths towards the end.

Ivar waved to Guthrum as the kid leaned on the accelerator and peeled down the driveway. He didn't know why he bothered - he doubted Guthrum would be able to see him through the cloud of dust the tires kicked up or that he’d be looking back in the first place. Spitting the taste of dust out of his mouth, Ivar began to pick his way across the yard towards the shed where he parked his motorcycle. He got inside and stopped short - Sigurd had brought her home alright, but the asshole hadn’t bothered to put her canvas cover back on, and he _knew_ how badly Ivar wanted her to stay beautiful. 

Floki had made her for him, taken two 1928 Harley Davidson JD series motorcycles, cut them completely apart, and then coaxed and sculpted and welded the pieces back together into a custom made, 3 wheeled, black and chrome dream. Ivar trailed his fingertips along her curves and smiled a little when he caught his own reflection in her gas tank. 

“Hello baby girl,” he murmured. “I’m sorry I was too hard on you today. Please say you forgive me.” 

Ivar got himself up onto her seat and pulled a leg up and over the side, turning to stow his crutches in the special slot welded against her body behind him. He then reached forward to where Floki had re-positioned the kick-start lever, hauling it up and down two or three times to prime the engine. 

“Come on baby, say you still love me.”

At least Sigurd hadn’t been to much of an asshole to not leave her keys in Ivar’s usual hiding spot. Holding his breath, he opened her fuel valve, pulled out her choke, slid her key home, and turned her ignition switch to ON. Ivar hoped against hope that he hadn’t ruined the best gift he’d even been given as he twisted the throttle and repeatedly yanked the kick-start lever. 

“Come on… Come on baby… Don’t do this to me… You know I love you… Come on baby, start… Come on!… _Start!”_

With his last yank the engine finally turned and Ivar breathed a sigh of relief. There was definitely something wrong - the usual throaty purr of her engine had an unhealthy rasp that shouldn’t be there and Ivar heard a definite rattle once he put her into gear, but she was alive. 

“Okay darlin’” he said, resting his forehead on the handlebars. “Let’s get you to the doctor’s.”

————————————————————————————————————————————

Floki’s Garage was beyond the farthest outskirts of town, run out of an enormous shed covered in tin siding and surrounded by ancient pecan trees. When he was alive Ragnar had offered multiple times to set Floki up someplace nicer, someplace closer to town, someplace with an actual _floor_ inside instead of just packed dirt, but Floki had always refused. He said that he and Helga liked their peace and quiet too much and that he’d never be able to _concentrate_ enough to get any work done if they were in town.

The yard in front of the shop was littered with piles of parts, a few motorcycles, and a handful of cars waiting their turn to go inside, and Ivar had to carefully coax his girl around them to make it up to the front. Floki was nowhere to be seen, but Helga was sitting outside on a stool next to a sleek dark green Rolls-Royce. She had a thin paintbrush in her hand and it seemed that Ivar had interrupted her right in the middle of laying a thin white stripe down the car’s side. She looked up a the sound of his engine and smiled when she recognized him. 

“Hello Helga,” he called, putting his bike into neutral. 

“Hello there Ivar. What brings you out this way so late in the day?”

Ivar leaned forward and tapped his fingers on the bike’s headlight. “I think I made her mad. She don’t sound right.”

“Ah. And you want my husband to drop everything and fix her for you?” Helga put down her paintbrush and wiped her hands on a rag, coming over to stand by Ivar. 

“I was hoping he might find the time,” he said giving her his best smile. 

“Uh huh, I’m sure you were,” she grinned to take the sting out of her words and gave Ivar a quick kiss on the forehead before he could lean away. “Alright then, he’s out back but I’ll go get him for you. Might as well bring her inside. Now what do you say?” 

Ivar rolled his eyes but obliged her. “Thank you Helga.”

“Good boy. Now come in and make yourself at home. Got some Cokes in the icebox if you want one.” 

“Yes ma’am.”

Helga tucked a bit of his hair back behind his ear before heading into the shop and winding her way towards the back door. Ivar managed to coax his bike back into gear and ease her into a bit of empty floorspace before climbing off her and hobbling his way over to his usual seat by the toolboxes. He did snag a Coke on the way, and he popped the top off and took a long drink before running the frosty glass along the back of his neck. The afternoon was quick headed towards evening, but it was still stiflingly hot.

It was easy for Ivar to feel at home here in the garage. He’d practically spent years of his childhood here after Ragnar had run off, breathing in the smells of sweat, gasoline, and old dirt. He’d memorized every detail of the framed photos on the walls, of Floki and Helga and all of their friends from long before Ivar was born. Ragnar was in most of them and his mother was in a few. The battered workbench on the left was where Floki had one day drawn up a pair of stools and taught Ivar to play chess, the old leather armchair in the back corner was where he’d done his schoolwork while Helga fussed over him, correcting his spelling and bringing him snacks, and the workbench on the right, next to Floki’s welding rig, was where Ivar had had the vision.

It had come from nothing. Ivar had been sitting there one afternoon, sharpening the long knife that he kept in his boot, and watching Floki finish a delicate repair. He’d heard a loud commotion, as though a huge flock of ravens had suddenly decided to roost in the pecan trees outside, and then smelled a strange scent - woodsmoke mixed with seawater and ozone. He remembered seeing the hairs on his arm stand up, and he’d heard his father’s voice, coming from right behind him. 

 

_“How the little piggies will grunt when they hear how the old boar suffered….”_

 

And then, before Ivar could turn, he’d fallen. His eyes had rolled back in his head, the knife had slipped out of his grip, and he’d collapsed onto the floor. He never felt the impact. From the moment his body had made contact it was as though some unseen force had grabbed him and pulled him swiftly **_down_** _,_ plummeting him into some dark abyss. 

Strange visions had flashed before his eyes as he’d fallen - waves crashing on an unfamiliar shore, a path through an old, ancient forest, a woman’s hands covered in blood, his father’s face - only he looked so _young_ , what looked like the hull of ship seen from underwater, a shoreline on fire with blood red waves, a raven and a black horse, a flock of birds taking flight, a burning forest, a snarling face, a storm-tossed sea, flashes of lighting, a drowning man. Faster and faster the visions had come, sweeping Ivar along with them. A part of him had recognized that his heart was beating _far, far_ too quickly, that something in him was dangerously close to breaking, but he was powerless to stop it. 

And then, the visions had suddenly stopped, and Ivar had seen the man. An old, gray man. He’d taken Ivar’s face in his hands and spoken to him in a deep voice that was older than time. 

 

_“Ivar, your father is dead. Killed by serpents. Cold in the cold, damp earth Ragnar lies.”_

 

Ivar had stared into the man’s single sapphire eye and known in his bones that what the gray man said was true. And then, as quickly as the vision had grabbed him, he’d been released. Ivar remembered the sensation of rapidly rising, of flying, of being almost _shoved_ back upwards.

And then, he was back. Lying on the floor of the garage, covered in sweat, with Helga and Floki kneeling on either side of him wearing matching looks of panicked worry. It hadn’t helped that Ivar had grabbed his knife from where it had fallen beside him, stabbed it into the packed earth of the garage floor, and screamed and screamed until his voice gave out. 

It was only later, once he’d finally agreed to let Floki give him a ride home and then spoken with his brothers that Ivar realized they’d all had the exact same vision, at the exact same time. The Gray Man had taken Sigurd while he was out on the porch cleaning his Browning Automatic, and he’d taken Ubbe while he was at the small shooting range the brothers had built in the woods behind the house. Same visions, same man, same message. Two weeks later once Bjorn and Hvitserk had returned from their trip to Galveston, Ubbe had managed to tactfully bring up the question of their father’s fate, and Hvitserk and Bjorn confirmed that they too had seen the Gray Man. 

Everything since then had gone by so quickly. Vengeance had to be taken, they all knew that, not only for themselves, but for the sake of their little kingdom. If the Lothbroks let something as major as the murder of their father go unpunished their enemies would sense their weakness, rise up, and devour them. No, they must have revenge. And so they put out the word, to every corner of their world - come and help us avenge our father. Come and punish those who thought that they could kill Ragnar Lothbrok, the _true_ King of the Carolinas, and get away with it. The brothers called on all of Ragnar’s old friends, the men they knew in Havana from Ragnar’s time in the army, the smugglers who ran liquor up and down the coast, the moonshiners from deep in the hills and hollers, the rum runners who traveled every back road and highway, and the bar owners in their secret back rooms and hidden tunnels. 

And oh, how they came. Some men out of love for his father and what he’d done for his little corner of the world, some only after the brothers had bribed them for their help, and others for the promise of the spoils to be had afterwards once Aelle and Ecbert were brought down, but come they did. Winfall’s population swelled like a creek in the springtime, until every hotel, boarding house, and spare room was filled with men. They were nearly ready. They just needed Harald and Halfdan’s help - their men to swell their ranks just that much more, and their ships to carry them up the coast. And for that they needed fifteen thousand dollars. 

“Hello Ivar.” Floki’s arrival startled Ivar out of his brooding. The skinny old mechanic pulled up a seat next to him as Helga glided past and back outside to finish her job on the Rolls Royce. “It’s very sweet of you to drag your crippled ass all the way out here to see me. Now what do you want?” 

“Why do you think I want anything from you, you spindly-legged, knock-kneed old grease monkey?” 

Floki raised his eyebrows. “It’s nice to see how much you've matured these past few months.”

“Matured, oh you think I want to be an old fool like you?” 

“The way you behave, dear Ivar, you’ll never get the chance.” Floki gave Ivar a stern look and Ivar scowled right back at him. The two kept their eyes locked for nearly ten seconds before Ivar couldn't take it anymore and burst out laughing. Floki giggled with him and wrapped Ivar up in a warm hug, clapping him on the back. 

“But really, dear boy, what can I do for you? Helga said you’d done something to your bike?”

Ivar scratched his head, trying to hide his guilt. “I think she blew something when I was out on the highway.”

The smile dropped from Floki’s face. “You WHAT!?” He threw himself to his feet and darted over to the motorcycle, running his hands along its body and looking at Ivar as though he’d just admitted to enjoying cannibalism. 

“Dammit Ivar, I told you to be gentle with her!”

“It’s not my fault! How am I supposed to be gentle with her if I don’t know what her limits are?” 

“You know well enough that she’s delicate!”

“The JD series engine is supposed to have a top speed of at least 85! I was barely going 70!” 

“ _Ivar!_ ”

“Oh come on Floki! I’ve been dragging around these useless legs all my life, I've had more than enough of going slow. You can't seriously expect me to take it easy now that I’ve got her!” 

Floki just scowled and gave Ivar an angry shake of the head. He turned away towards the workbench behind him and started to grab a few tools, muttering into his beard things like _“No respect,”_ and _“That’s custom made work,”_ and _“Ungrateful little shit.”_ He found what he was looking for and started unbolting the seat from the frame, still red faced and not looking at Ivar. 

Helga came back inside and grabbed herself a Coke from the icebox. She saw Floki bent over the motorcycle, raised her eyebrows and gave Ivar a look that said _you’ve brought this upon yourself, son,_ but didn’t say anything before heading back outside. Floki had now succeeded in exposing the bike’s engine and still the silence hung in the air. Eventually Ivar couldn't take it anymore. 

“I’m sorry, alright Floki? Okay? I’m sorry I pushed her too hard and ruined your work. I'm sorry.”

Floki harrumphed, but did throw Ivar a tiny smile. He poked a screwdriver into the motorcycles inner workings and tapped on a hose.

“I think I see what you did. Should be able to fix her for you.”

Ivar let loose a breath he didn't know he’d been holding. “Oh thank you Jesus. That’s great news.” 

“And then you’re going to keep her under 50.”

“Aw, Floki -”

“I said _under_ _50_ , Ivar.”

“Ugh…fine.”

“Good boy,” the silence returned, but now the tension was gone from it. Ivar watched Floki remove more and more parts from his bike until he’d worked the broken part loose. He laid it on on the floor beside him and pulled a new one from a bin below the workbench behind him. 

“How did the meeting go?” he asked.

“Fine.”

“What did Harald want for his help?” 

“How’d you know he’d want something?”

Floki looked up at him. “Because he’s _Harald Finehair_ Ivar _._ He doesn’t do anything for anyone unless there’s something in it for him.” 

“Introductions to our suppliers in Havana and Galveston.”

“Oh. Well that’s not too bad I suppose.”

“And fifteen thousand dollars.”

Floki eyebrows jerked up his forehead. “Oh.”

“Yeah.” 

“How much cash you and your brothers got on hand?”

“Three, maybe four thousand dollars? We lost a shipment of tequila when the _Hedeby_ went down in that storm off of Georgia, so that hit us hard, and with all the preparations for the raid and paying everyone else off, we’re stretched a little thin.”

“I see.” Floki seemed to be thinking something over as he methodically twisted a bolt home. “I can cover the rest.” 

Ivar dropped his Coke bottle. “You can _what_?”

“I can cover the rest.”

“You-, you-, you’re just going to give us _twelve thousand dollars_?”

“Ya’ll need it. I don’t. Me and Helga already have everything we need right here.”

Ivar looked around the shop at the tin walls and dirt floor. Nothing at all about the place spoke of wealth or extravagance.

“But Floki, that’s so much money!”

Floki wagged a finger at him. “Deuteronomy 15:10, Ivar. ‘Give generously to them and do so without a grudging heart; then because of this the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in everything you put your hand to.’” He smiled and patted Ivar’s Harley in front of him before continuing. “Been putting a little aside ever since I used to go out on runs with your daddy, my share of the take from each trip. Thought I could pass it on to Angrboda once she got older, set her up some place nice in a big city, but- ” he shook his head and trailed off. “Anyway, that don’t matter no more, and ya’ll need the help.” 

“Are you _sure_?”

Floki fixed him with a steady look. “Ivar, I loved your daddy like a brother since _long_ before you were born. He saved my life more times that I can count and I saved his skin once or twice as well. Twelve grand for Ragnar’s vengeance? That’s a small price to pay. I’m sure.”

Ivar was still trying to let Floki off the hook. “Well, what about Helga? What does she think about all this? Shouldn't she get a say?”

Floki turned and called over his shoulder. “Hey Helga, my darlin’? Come in her for a second, would you please?”

“Yeah boys, what’s going on?” she said, walking in with a curious smile. 

“Honey, is it all right with you if I give Ivar and the boys twelve grand out of the savings to get the raid off the ground? They need it to pay off Harald and Halfdan.” 

Helga seemed surprised at the question. “Oh, yeah of course. That’s what family’s for.” She gave Floki a kiss on the forehead and went back outside. 

Floki turned back to Ivar and cocked an eyebrow.

“Alright then?”

Ivar nodded, a smile stretching across his face. “Alright then.” 

—————————————————————————————————————————————

It took a few hours, but Floki got Ivar’s bike up and running again and purring like a kitten. He roared home at exactly 49 mph with a sack of cash in his saddlebags and found his brothers on the back porch. They all jumped when Ivar tossed the sack of cash on the floorboards in front of them, and Sigurd reached down to open it, mouth dropping open at the stacks of bills. 

“Ivar, what the hell?” he asked. 

Ivar pointed a finger at the money, looking Sigurd straight in the eye. “That right there is enough for us to cover getting Harald and Halfdan over to our side. Good enough for you?”

Sigurd gave Ivar a feral smile, his snake eye catching the porch light, and for once Ivar smiled back. “Yeah, Ivar. Good enough.” 

—————————————————————————————————————————————

They left a week later. It had taken that long for the last of the arrivals to make it to town, enough supplies to be gathered, and everyone to get ferried onto the ships waiting beyond the horizon line, but now after so many months of waiting and planning they were underway. 

And now, three days out of Winfall, Ivar was sitting in the stern of his family’s ship the _Kattegat_ , trying to decide whether or not he wanted to throw up again. It was night, and the ship was at anchor, the other members of their little fleet scattered across the sea with them. The only other person on deck was the nightwatchman over by the helm. His brothers’ teasing and their jokes about _sea legs_ had quit after their first day at sea, but he still couldn't keep any food down, and his nights were plagued with nightmares of freak waves and screaming winds, so Ivar preferred to spend his evenings out on deck, wrapped in a blanket, alone under the moon. It was a clear night, and the swells were fairly light, so Ivar was thinking it might be safe to try again to get some sleep, when he heard the noise. A high, whining drone coming from off their port side. Groggily, he struggled out of his blanket and crawled to the other side of the deck to have a look. Three pale motorboats were headed towards the _Kattegat,_ skimming across the surface of the water and closing fast. 

“Hey!” he screamed to the night watchman. “Get everybody up! Runabouts incoming! We’ve got company!” 

The watchman disappeared below deck as Ivar cursed himself for not having his pistol in him - he’d also left his leg braces and crutches in his bunk belowdeck so he couldn't even stand. He ducked as part of the rail beside him exploded into wood chips - the bastards were close enough to fire on them now.

Bjorn was the first man back up on deck, shirtless and clutching his Springfield rifle, closely followed by Hvitserk and his Browning Automatic. “What’s going on?” he shouted at Ivar. 

Ivar pointed at the rapidly closing little boats. “Get down!” he shouted. “Go-through-guys incoming!” 

Bjorn grabbed Hvitserk by the shoulder and shoved him across the deck towards the anchor winch as Ubbe and Sigurd appeared, followed by Harald and Halfdan. “Take Sigurd and get us underway! Ubbe, signal the rest of the fleet!” he barked before striding straight over to where Ivar was taking cover behind the rail and peering out at the circling motorboats. A shot hit the rail near his hand, throwing some wood chips up onto his forearm, but he just brushed them off. Finally, a voice called to them across the water. 

“Ahoy there, _Kattegat_!” came a man’s voice, his accent tinged with just a hint of Brooklyn. “Keep your sails furled an’ no one has to get hurt! Just give us your cargo and we’ll be on our way!”

Bjorn laughed grimly to himself. “I don’t fucking think so.” He raised his rifle, sighted at the man steering the closest boat, and the night exploded.

Afterward, it was all a bit of a blur for Ivar. He remembered Ubbe pushing his shotgun into his hand and hearing its roar as he made it chew holes out of the runabouts. He saw Floki appear, the man drawing a pistol out of the pocket of his coat and firing until it ran dry, then tossing it aside before reaching into his coat for another. Hvitserk and Sigurd taking cover behind the crate holding Ivar’s motorcycle that they’d lashed to the deck, taking turns to fire around the corners while the other reloaded. Harald and Halfdan each holding a Tommy gun, laughing and screaming while they sent lines of fire across the water and through the bodies of their would-be raiders. Finally, only one man was left alive, gunning his boat away across the moonlit sea, before Ubbe sighted down the barrel of his rifle and caught him in the back of the head. Afterward, it was utterly quiet on deck.

“Nice shot,” Bjorn finally said. 

“Thanks,” Ubbe replied. 

“Who do you think they were?” Sigurd asked. 

“Don’t know,” Bjorn said. “The one of them sounded like he was out of New York. But whoever they were, we couldn't let them get away. Can’t take the chance of someone taking word to Ecbert.” 

Hvitserk gestured out at the hulks of the three boats and the red-coated corpses they contained. “What do we do about them?”

“Leave them. Let the sea have them,” Bjorn said. “We’re in international waters right now and by the time anyone comes looking for them we’ll be gone.” He looked around at the crew on deck, the commander of their little army. “Get some sleep, everyone. It’s three more days until Boston, and I want you all fully ready when its time to meet Aelle.” 

The smell of spent powder was starting to clear the air as the nightwatchman took his place at the helm and the rest of the men made their way towards the hatch back down into the hold. Bjorn paused on the top step of the ladder before he followed them. 

“Oh and Ivar? Good eye.” 

“Thanks.” 

“See you in the morning then.”

“See you in the morning.”

Ivar crawled back over to where he’d been trying to sleep before the fight. Still clutching his shotgun, he leaned back against a coil of rope and wrapped his blanket around him. The full moon had hardly moved while he and his brothers had fought for their lives. The entire thing had probably taken less than ten minutes. He was halfway through humming an old hymn that his mother used to sing to him before he finally drifted off. 


	5. Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: VIOLENCE. Gun violence, blood, descriptions of violent death, blood, gore, blood, holy crap that’s gross, blood, swearing, blood, descriptions of a blood eagle, blood, and Yankees

—————————————————————————————————————————————

Boston Harbor _fucking stank._ It was the reek of dead fish and rotting seaweed mixed with the smoke from countless chimneys and the sharp scents of oil and gasoline, with underneath it all the faint scent of warm molasses, and it had been infecting Ivar’s nostrils ever since the _Kattegat_ had slipped into the harbor that morning. 

Ivar had been sitting in the bow fighting another wave of seasickness as the city came into view. Sigurd walked up to stand beside him and for a while the two brothers studied the city in silence, gazing out at its church steeples and skyscrapers, the bridges over the Charles River, the dozen or so wharves thrusting like fingers out into the sea. 

“It’s a little impressive isn’t it?” Sigurd asked, shading his eyes to watch a cruise liner begin to pull away from her dock. 

Ivar harrumphed. “They’re just a bunch of damn Yankees. Nothing to make a fuss over.”

Sigurd turned to him and cocked a quizzical eyebrow. “Edgar Allen Poe was from Boston. You like him.” 

“Yeah, so? The man could write a good story. Still a Yankee.” 

“Paul Revere was from Boston too. And Ben Franklin.” 

“Oh give it up Sigurd. You like it so much, you can move here. Go to that fancy college they’ve got and make friends with all the fancy people.” 

Sigurd shrugged and turned to leave Ivar to his brooding. “Maybe I will.” 

—————————————————————————————————————————————

It took a few hours for each of the ships in their little fleet to find a place along Union Wharf, and by the time they finished the sun was high in the sky. It seemed as though as far north as they’d come, they still couldn’t shake the summer heat, and the delay in finding everyone a berth had done no favors for anyone’s temper. Bjorn’s earlier attempt to slip the harbormaster a discreet bribe to falsify their paperwork and forego cargo inspections had almost come to blows. It had ended with Ubbe pulling him away while Floki slipped over twice the original bribe amount into the hands of the fuming harbormaster. 

Ivar, still seated on a wooden crate in the ship’s bow, was about to give up on the hope of any sort of breeze to disturb the harbor’s foul, sticky air. He glowered over the rail at the hordes of people milling about the docks and felt a momentary surge of disquiet. Yankees or not, there sure were _a lot of them._ Maybe Sigurd had been right about going home when this was all over…

“ _Ivar_. Are you _listening_?”

Ivar whipped his head back to the group spread out around the deck behind him. Bjorn had a map of Boston spread out on the planks and was giving Ivar a skeptical look. 

“Of course I am……what?”

Floki laughed, a short, sharp giggle, and Bjorn shook his head. “ _As I was saying_ , we’ve docked here, at Union Wharf, right off of the corner of Atlantic Avenue and Commercial Street.” He dragged his finger to a new point on the map, clear on the other side of the city, near the Charles River. “Aelle lives here, in Back Bay. Supposed to be a big house at the end of Mt. Vernon Street, but we need to get a look at what we’ll be dealing with. Hvitserk, Sigurd, you go and scout it out. See if you can count how many men he’s got guarding, if you can spot how many he always has with him, entrances and exits to the house, that sort of thing.”

“My brother will go with you.” Harald said from his spot leaning against the rail.

Bjorn looked surprised. “Appreciate it, but that’s not necessary. Hvitserk and Sigurd can handle themselves.”

Harald spread his hands, a magnanimous gesture that looked a little too well rehearsed. “More eyes are always helpful.”

Bjorn glanced at his younger brothers, then at Halfdan. The man’s nervous tics had increased more and more over the course of the voyage, and when he hadn’t been having long talks with his brother he’d taken to pacing the deck like a caged beast. Ivar thought he looked _particularly eager_ to get off the ship and into the city. Hvitserk and Sigurd each wore uncomfortable expressions, but both of them nodded in agreement.

Floki settled the matter, stepping forward and adjusting the long coat that he wore despite the heat. “I’ll go with them. I’ve been here before and I remember the city good enough. I’ll take them to Aelle’s.” _And keep an eye on_ ** _this_** _one,_ his eyes said. 

Bjorn returned Floki’s look. “Alright. Be careful. We don’t have people here so we won’t be able to help if the cops bring you in. Probably best not to let Aelle’s men see you.” 

The four of them nodded, and Halfdan even sketched a little bow, before Bjorn handed them the folded map and they all turned to leave. 

“No, wait,” Ivar called them back, eyes going unfocused as his mind darted ahead. “Let them see you. Let them know we’re here.”

Bjorn glared at him. “What are you talking about?”

Ivar waved a hand down at the hubbub. “Look around. I’ll bet you five dollars that some kid is already running to Aelle’s to let him know we’re here. He _has_ to know the names of our ships. So why bother hiding?” Ivar turned to his brothers, a pleading look beginning to creep over his face. “Don’t you remember what Father always said? _‘A frightened man is already half beat.’_ There’s only one reason for all of us to be here, and he knows it.” He gestured at Harald and Halfdan. “The fact that we’ve got men like you on our side only makes it worse for him. Let yourselves be seen and Aelle will start making mistakes. Mistakes that we can use.”

Sigurd looked doubtful. “How do you know he won’t just run? Turn tail and get out of town? He is just a Yankee, like you said.”

“And leave his territory undefended? With the lot of us on the loose in _his_ city? Come on Sigurd. He can’t. If he leaves now he never gets Boston back, and he knows it. He _has_ to fight.” 

Bjorn still looked skeptical, but Floki and Ubbe seemed convinced. 

“He’s right,” Ubbe admitted.

“Yes he is Bjorn,” Floki agreed.

Bjorn sighed and looked over at the four men, still paused on their way to the gangplank. “Fine. If they see you, they see you, and if they don’t, then they don’t. Get going.”

————————————————————————————————————————————

They reconvened early the next morning in the _Kattegat’s_ galley, crowding around the small table while Ubbe handed out cups of black coffee. 

“So here’s what we’re looking at,” Hvitserk proclaimed, spreading a sketched plan of Aelle’s house out on the galley table and pointing out different sections. “Front door and back door on the house, always at least two men defending. Sometimes they’re dressed as gardeners, or servants, or drivers, but we could tell they were all armed and there were always at least two at each door.”

“That kills the front and back door then,” Bjorn muttered.

“Not entirely,” Halfdan piped up from his spot in the doorway. “It just kills the element of surprise.”

“And possibly one of us.”

Halfdan smiled his too-wide grin and made a tut-tut noise. “Oh not you, Bjorn Ironside, never you.” 

Bjorn ignored Halfdan’s use of his nickname and turned back to his brothers. “What else?” 

Sigurd extended a hand. “There’s a kitchen entrance here, off a side alley, but the way is narrow - we could probably just _barely_ fit a truck back there.Even if we could force the door, the neighbor’s house shares the alley, and there’s no reason for us to think it’s not owned by one of Aelle’s lieutenants.” 

Bjorn looked up. “Windows?”

Hvitserk shook his head. “Steel shutters. Bars on all the first floor too.” 

“Shit.” Bjorn stood up and rubbed the back of his neck. “Damn front door’s probably made of steel too.”

“We couldn’t actually get close enough to.…” Sigurd’s voice trailed off after Ubbe elbowed him in the ribs. 

Ivar spoke up. “Did you at least get a look at Aelle?” 

Sigurd nodded. “Saw him coming back from some kind of fancy party in a nice blue Cadillac. Had three of his lieutenants with him.” He turned to Floki. “You didn't tell us he was so fat.” Floki shrugged. 

Bjorn was still staring at the map of Boston and Hvitserk’s sketch. “So how do we get in…?” he muttered, tracing a finger along the ink lines. 

“Who says we have to?”

The entire room turned to look at Ivar. 

“Beg your pardon, son?” Harald asked. 

“Why do we have to get in to him? Why can’t we make him come to us?” He turned to Hvitserk and Sigurd. “If you weren't seen in the city, someone will certainly have reported to Aelle that the _Kattegat_ has pulled into port. He has to know we’re here. He’s going to expect us to come at him in a certain way, but why should we? Why don’t we come at him in a different way and surprise him? Why don’t we get him to come to _us_?”

“How?” Ubbe asked. 

“We give him a reason to come out. We give him something he wants. Something that he can’t get if he stays locked up in his house.”

Bjorn leaned back in his seat and crossed his arms. “Like what?” 

A high pitched laugh broke the tension. “Me. We give him me.” 

Everyone in the galley shifted again, this time to gape at Floki. He was standing in the corner of the galley and smiling at them a little sadly from over the rim of his coffee cup. “I know him. He knows me. I’ve been raiding his businesses and killing his men since before you four were born. And we were seen. He knows I’m in his city. He’ll come out.” 

Bjorn stood up. “Out of the question, Floki. We’re not just going to offer you up like some sort of sacrificial lamb.” 

“Who said anything about sacrifices, Bjorn?” Floki’s eyes twinkled at them over his coffee cup. “The fat bastard’ll have to catch me first.” 

Hvitserk was on Bjorn’s side. “The men won’t understand what’s happening. This is not the kind of plan they were expecting.” 

Ivar’s mind was still flying ahead. “We can make them understand. We do have more men now, but who knows how many men they have, Hvitserk? We can’t go at him in the same way that Father would have. Busting down the door isn’t going to work.” 

“Ivar, are you _seriously_ agreeing with him?” Sigurd asked. 

“What!? It’s Floki’s decision, and it’s a good idea. Shut your mouth!” 

Bjorn rounded on them. “ _Knock it off, the both of you!”_ He was quiet for a second, looking from Ivar to Floki and back. “I won’t let you do this,” he said to Floki. 

The old mechanic gave another sad giggle. “I don’t remember requiring your permission.” 

“Oh for Christ’s sake! Why are you two so damn set on this… this… _suicidal_ idea?” 

Ivar reached up and gripped his brother’s forearm. “Because _it can_ _work_ , Bjorn. Don’t you want to win? We would just need to scout out a route for Floki to take. Maybe, instead of attacking in the street we should come at Aelle in a large area - like one of those parks? And we can use the city to our advantage. The streets, the buildings, the docks…… What do you say?”

Bjorn rubbed a hand over his face. “Fine,” he said quietly. “If it works, it is a good plan. If it doesn’t, then it is a bad plan. And then Floki will be dead.” He raised his hands in defeat, looking around the cramped little room. “Let’s get started.” 

—————————————————————————————————————————————

It was a good plan. In fact, it was almost easy. It had taken most of the day to iron out all of the details, and then get the orders out to all of the captains of their little army, but in the end it worked nearly perfectly. 

Ivar had been stationed down the street from Aelle’s, motorcycle hidden behind a line of gleaming parked cars. It was getting towards sundown, and Mt. Vernon Street was deserted, all the good Boston Brahmins of the neighborhood sitting down to dinner with their families or in their rooms getting dressed for a night out at some gala or another. Ivar watched as Floki strolled around the corner as though he hadn’t a care in the world, face lifted to catch the last light of the sun, until he stood right outside Aelle’s front gate. He went utterly silent and still, just staring up at the house and its brightly lit windows. The two guards that Hvitserk had mentioned were there - one man dressed as a chauffeur leaning against what was indeed a beautiful blue Cadillac and another pretending to be a gardener was just finishing up clipping the hedges near the sidewalk. Both of them tensed up when they saw Floki standing there.

“Can I help you with something sir?” Not A Gardener called out. Floki didn’t move and the man tried again, voice getting an edge to it. “Hey pal, what’s the matter? You lost?” Floki just looked up at the house and smiled even wider. 

Not A Gardener had come out onto the sidewalk now. “Look pal, I don’t know what your problem is, but you need to move a—” The sentence choked off in a gurgling hiss of blood, as Floki moved faster than Ivar had ever seen him, grabbing the pruning shears out of Not A Gardener’s hands and thrusting them through his neck. Before the man had even fallen, blood-slick hands pulling uselessly at the wooden handles of the shears, Floki had drawn a Colt pistol from his coat pocket and shot Not A Chauffeur right between the eyes. The old mechanic threw back his head and roared loud enough to wake the dead. 

“ ** _AELLE!_** ” he thundered, arms flung wide.“I know you’re in there! You killed Ragnar! You killed my best friend! Well I bring you his vengeance, so come out here and face me you _bastard_!” 

Ivar saw the commotion flare up inside the house at the sound of the gunshot and Floki’s proclamation, and it was only another few seconds before the guards from the back door made it around the corner of the house, these ones dressed as kitchen staff. Floki easily hit the first one in the chest, but the second man threw himself behind the cover of the Cadillac just in time and Floki only winged him in the arm. By now, the front door had opened and men were starting to spill out into the yard. Floki took cover behind the stone wall separating the yard from the street, occasionally firing warning shots over the top as bullets pinged off the stone around him, and now it was Ivar’s turn to move. He gunned his motorcycle down the street, crouching low over the handlebars, and came to a screeching halt a few feet away from Floki’s position. 

“Let’s go!” he shouted over the din. Floki’s eyes were wild, but this was the happiest that Ivar had seem him in months, since his vision of the Gray Man, and he laughed as he threw himself into the seat behind Ivar. The engine roared back to life and the two of them flew down the road, Floki firing a few parting shots behind them and calling back “Come and get me then, _ya fucking Yankees_!” Over the roar of the wind in his ears and the rumbling of his motorcycle Ivar thought he head Aelle’s shout of _“After them!”_ and he couldn't help the smile that crept up onto his face. 

They tore through the city as the night continued to fall around them, twisting and turning through the streets. As they flew, Ivar caught glimpses of the others, stationed in locations specially picked to throw off or lead away any potential police involvement, each of them riding in “borrowed” cars. There was Harald and Halfdan, then Bjorn and Ubbe, and Sigurd and Hvitserk, all right where they were supposed to be. Aelle’s men took sporadic shots at them; Floki gripped Ivar’s shoulder and fired back when he could. One of their lucky shots shattered the side mirror just inches from Ivar’s hand. He yelped and nearly lost control of the bike before Floki reached forward to grab the handlebars and steady them. 

“Steady Ivar!” he shouted into his ear. “We’re almost there!” 

He was right. The upper crust neighborhoods of Boston were already far behind them, the streets they were tearing through now were darker, the houses and shops less well lit. Ivar could smell the sea again and the black hulks of the warehouses along the docks were rising up out of the gathering night. Soon, Ivar spotted the one he was looking for - built of pale, sun-bleached wood with _Northumbria Shipping Company_ painted in tall black letters along its side. He gunned his bike through the open loading door, squealed to a halt along the floorboards, and came to rest near a pile of old shipping crates. After the adrenaline of the chase and the thundering gunshots in his ears, the silence inside was almost deafening. Floki clambered off the bike and immediately started urging Ivar away. 

“Go on now boy! Get to your position, we don’t have long!” He turned and darted off into the gathering gloom as Ivar guided his bike into a position deep in the back of the warehouse, hoping the murmur of the waves would hide the light rumbling of its engine as it sat idle. 

Floki was right, only moments after Ivar got turned around Aelle’s blue Cadillac came to a screeching halt outside, followed by several more cars. A swarm of men in grey suits flooded into the warehouse, led by Aelle and a portly, sweating man with a balding head. 

“Where is he?!” Aelle yelled. “You said he came in here Bishop, so _where is he?!_ ”

“Sir, I saw the motorcycle make the turn. There's nowhere else he could have gone!”

“Then find him! He’s just some skinny hick from the south, he can’t have just _disappeared_!” 

The men spread out, working their way deeper and deeper into the shadows of the warehouse. One of them was coming closer and closer to Ivar’s position, and he slowly moved his hand to the stock of his shotgun before a call drew the man’s attention back to the loading door. 

“Looking for me?” Floki growled. Ivar had never seen him like this before. Gone was the smiling, laughing man who’d taught him to play chess and drilled Bible verses into his head. He’d been replaced by a vengeful demon, by an angry wolf who stalked out into the moonlight, whole body _thrumming_ with anger. “Well here I am.” 

Aelle laughed. “That’s it? You’re all the great Ragnar Lothbrok can summon up?” 

Floki glared at him, raising two fingers to his mouth and giving a piercing whistle. “Boys!” he called. “Time to come out and play.”

Ivar could see the blood drain out of Aelle’s face when he realized that he and his men had been led into a trap. From all around the warehouse, shadows shifted and coalesced into men. They appeared from behind stacks of crates and barrels, appeared out of the murky depths of its interior, stood up on the beams of its roof. Every one of them armed, and every one of them wearing an expression of hatred to match Floki’s. Ivar saw Bjorn and the rest of his brothers appear out of the shadows to his left and beside them Harald and Halfdan were already smiling as they lifted their Tommy Guns.

But before the warehouse lit up with gunfire and men started to die, the call went up, echoing out across the harbor. 

**_For Ragnar._ **

—————————————————————————————————————————————

They left Aelle alive. It had been decided that the death of a single bullet would be too good for him. No, his end would come much more slowly. 

By the time Bjorn and Floki were able to drag him out from behind the remains of a loading crane he was out of bullets and the last of his men were bleeding out on the floor around him. He tried to beat them away with the butt of his pistol, but Bjorn just took it away from him and backhanded him across the face. His eyes went wide with surprise as Bjorn and Floki wrestled him to his feet. 

“Look at me!” Bjorn shouted at him. “Look at me, you sniveling coward! Is this the place where you killed my father? Is this the place where you killed Ragnar Lothbrok?” 

Aelle narrowed his eyes and clenched his jaw, looking like he was going to stay silent until Bjorn hit him again. Ivar heard something crack with the hit and saw blood start to flow. 

“Tell me!” Bjorn roared into the man's face. Aelle clapped his hands over his broken nose and nodded. 

“Here….it was here…” he managed to gurgle out. 

“Show us where,” Bjorn growled. “Show us _exactly_ where.”

Aelle raised a shaky hand and pointed towards the back of the warehouse, away from the water. “Back there…”

He guided them until they found a large trapdoor set into the warehouse floor, rusted iron rings set into each side. Bjorn looked insulted at the sight.

“Here?” he asked. “This is the place?”

Aelle nodded, swallowing around the knife Sigurd held pressed to his throat, and Bjorn gestured to the others to open it, revealing a deep pit dug into the earth. Ivar crawled forward to have a look. He could just barely see the bottom, and the smell of death and rot made him gag. He couldn't see any bones though. 

“ _This_ is where out father was killed.” Ivar said, sharing Bjorn’s sense of insult. Aelle was starting to snivel. 

“ _How the little piggies will grunt when they hear how the old boar suffered,_ ” Bjorn growled, snarling at the defeated man. 

“How much?” Aelle gasped out. “How much money to spare my life? Name your price. I’ll give you anything you want. Anything!”

“You are mistaken, _Yankee_.” Ivar sneered. “My father was worth far more than your gold and silver. That is not the price you must pay.” 

Floki strode forward to push Sigurd out of the way, grabbing Aelle by the shoulders and forcing the whimpering man to his knees. 

“I’ve been told you started life as a carpenter,” he said, still thrumming with anger. “And guess what? So did I.”

—————————————————————————————————————————————

They laid him out on his stomach, trussed up like a deer ready for skinning.

Floki found the mallet and a handful of nails in the foreman’s office, and knocked together the frame using some old lumber that had been left lying around. Hvitserk and Sigurd held Aelle’s arms while Floki drove the spikes through his hands to keep him still. Ivar watched it all while sitting in front of them, drinking in the look on the fallen king’s face and trying to memorize the sounds of his screams. He seemed to be trying to get a handle on himself, to fight off the pain, until Bjorn stepped behind him and ripped his shirt down the back. The feeling of Bjorn’s knife parting his flesh set him to screaming again. He made a deep vertical cut along the man’s spine, withdrew the knife, and plunged it back into the thick red line to draw it deeper. Satisfied, he stabbed the knife into the lumber next to Aelle’s head, and reached down to yank the skin from the man’s back. It tore away from his flesh with a wet, sucking sound. By now Aelle’s screams had turned into one long, continuous wail of agony. 

Bjorn turned to Ubbe, who handed him a small sailor’s hatchet that they’d had aboard the _Kattegat_. Bjorn raised it high, and brought it down on the man’s exposed ribs. They parted like green twigs in the springtime, and Aelle’e whole body gave a violent _jerk_ from the force of the blow. Four, five, six times Bjorn brought the hatchet down, face twisted with rage, blood flying everywhere. A spray of it caught Ivar on the face, running down his lips. His tongue unconsciously darted out to taste it and he groaned at the warm, salty taste.

Aelle’s eyes were starting to flutter and lose their focus now. As Bjorn reached into his chest to yank his broken ribs apart, Ivar pulled himself off his motorcycle, and slithered across the floor towards the dying man, leaving his crutches behind. Closer and closer he pulled himself, until he could feel Aelle’s final breaths on his face, stare into his eyes and watch the life fading from them. Finally, Aelle gave one final shudder and went still. Ivar smiled. He couldn’t help himself. It was beautiful. 

The warehouse went silent, the entire band staring at Aelle’s body, watching the blood drip from his gaping wounds. Floki stepped up next to Ivar, looking down at the man’s corpse. 

“Behold,” he said, “I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay everyone for what he has done.” 

—————————————————————————————————————————————

They left him there as dawn approached, still nailed to the board he’d died on. They tied ropes around the ends of the lumber and hauled him into the air, a grisly warning to any who might see. Skin flayed from his back and swaying slightly in the breeze through the doors, ribs yanked open and glistening wetly in the early morning light, lungs pulled out of his chest and draped over his shoulders.

It was an old punishment. The worst that any of them knew. From the stories they’d heard from their grandfathers it was something from the Old Country, used only on those deserving of the worst death imaginable, and it had never been performed in America before. 

Ivar was one of the last to leave, easing his motorcycle down the road around the cars left by Aelle and his men. A loud, angry _caw!_ made him look up. It was a raven, perched on the peak of the warehouse ahead of him. It was one of the biggest he’d ever seen, and more and more were coming down to land on the rooftops around him or circling in the sky above.

If Ivar hadn’t known any better he would have said that the big one looked _proud_ of him. He shook off the fantasy and made it past the obstacles left in the road to pull out onto the early morning Boston streets, the ravens’ cries rising up behind him, slicing through the morning calm. 


	6. When God is Gone and the Devil Takes Hold

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: VIOLENCE, descriptions of violent methods of killing and death, descriptions of gruesome injuries, gang violence, beatings, blood, gore, swearing, using religion to justify questionable moral choices, memories of near death experiences, mentions of alcohol and drug use, use of fire and horrible burns as a weapon, allusions to prostitution

The last of the light had just about gone from the sky and the stars were beginning to ignite when the _Kattegat_ rounded the tip of Brooklyn and sailed into New York Harbor. For the first time since they’d left Winfall, it was actually somewhat pleasant out, and most of the ship’s crew was out on deck passing around tin mugs of moonshine and enjoying the cool sea breeze. Ivar was sitting a little ways away from Ubbe and Hvitserk, watching the city lights turn on with his chin resting on the rail, while Sigurd was up in the bow with a few of the other men, picking out a tune on his guitar. Harald and Halfdan were playing checkers while Bjorn looked on over Harald’s shoulder, intently studying the board and occasionally leaning over to whisper a suggestion. Spirits were high after their successes in Boston and their seemingly clean getaway, and while Ivar felt the occasional thread of happiness and excitement probe at his heart, it never seemed to latch on. 

They were passing by the Statue of Liberty, her torch lit up and glowing like a miniature sun, when Floki came out on deck and shoved over a pair of shipping crates to sit beside Ivar. He sat himself down on one of them and unrolled his gun cleaning kit on the top of the other in front of him. He placed a small bottle of gun oil next to it, pulled a 1908 Colt out of one of his coat pockets, and began to take it apart. 

“You are not enjoying yourself, Ivar.” It wasn’t a question. 

“Just thinking.” 

“About?”

“Do you think he knows? Do you think he knows we’re coming for him?” He didn't have to say who. 

Floki nodded. “He knows. He’ll have seen the newspapers. Right now I bet the old snake is trying to figure out how to find us before we find him.” 

Ivar looked back at the twinkling skyline. “How’s he supposed to do that? How many people do you think live there?” 

“Couple million, give or take.”

Ivar made a noise of disgust. “Why would anyone want to live like that? Packed together like ants?”

Floki sighed and shook his head, snapping his pistol back together and reaching into his coat pocket for another. “My boy, I have _no idea_. I always hated coming up here with your father. Thought of that many people packed together makes my neck itch from all the way out here.”

“How is Ecbert supposed to find us then?” 

“He’ll send his people out. Have them start searching all the old hideouts your father and I used to use. We’ve just got to pick the right battleground.” 

Ivar smiled at the idea and squinted back out over the waves at the growing city skyline as the forest of skyscrapers glowed brighter and brighter. One of them looked like the roof was covered in real gold. A flash of white light drew their attention to the north, where lightning outlined a growing mass of thunderheads gathering over the Hudson, threatening to roll down the river and send a deluge down upon the city. Floki chuckled to himself and pointed at the clouds. 

“You remember that story I used to tell you when you was a boy?”

“About the Wild Hunt?”

“Yeah.” Floki smiled. “Ghost riders in the sky, led by the Devil himself. Riding horses made of lightning, with the hounds of Hell running alongside, bringing storms and destruction in their wake. My old Grandpa used to say that if you heard them riding it meant that war was coming, and to see them - to see them meant death. For one look upon the faces of such demons would cause the soul to fly from the body, and doom you to ride with them forever.” 

Ivar felt a thread of excitement finally burrow inside of him as the clouds lit up again. “I always liked that story.”

Floki laughed. “Yeah. Me too.” 

Tin cups appearing over their shoulders startled them out of the moment - it was Hvitserk and Ubbe, come to share their bottle of moonshine. Ivar took a cup from Ubbe and clinked it against the rim of his brother’s before raising it to his lips to taste the liquid fire. 

“So,” Ubbe asked, smacking his lips, “does it look the same as the last time you were here?”

Ivar frowned. “I didn’t actually see much of it the last time I was here. And what I did see was more back over that way.” He gestured aft of them, towards the distant lights of Coney Island and the beaches of Far Rockaway and took another drink. 

—————————————————————————————————————————————

He’d seen rain, driven so hard by the wind it looked like it was falling sideways. His father’s face, shouting at him, telling him not to scream, to be a man. Ragnar had tied him to the mast so the storm wouldn't throw him overboard. Then the wave, seemingly taller than the skyscrapers they were looking at now. A wall of water coming up to devour their little ship. His father’s face, looking at him, as though he was sorry, sorry for _everything_. And then, nothing…

Until the sun was in his eyes and his face was covered in sand and Ragnar was telling him to get up, to move, they had to move. A handful of the former crew had survived, strung out along the beach. They’d pulled themselves together, found an abandoned warehouse to hide out in, and sent one of their group into Manhattan to get the lay of the land and bring back news. He hadn’t returned. After a day went by and still no sign of him the other survivors had started to get restless. He’d heard them whispering to each other in the dead of night.

_“We should just go, maybe Ecbert will help us. Show mercy.”_

_“Ragnar would kill us if we tried to leave.”_

_“So we kill_ **_him_ ** _. And that useless boy of his.”_

He’d waited, silently tamping down his rage, until the sky to the east had just a touch of gray, before going to wake his father. Whispered to him of the mutiny among the men who’d once worshipped the ground he’d walked on. Ragnar had gotten to his feet, silent as a cat in defiance of the gray in his beard, and handed him a knife. Together they’d crept among their men, cutting their throats, until they were the only ones left alive. One of them, a girl about his age, had begged for her life, but he’d killed her anyway. 

Then, they had walked. Or rather, Ragnar had walked. He’d lost his crutches during the storm and they’d had no money for taxi cabs or trains, so Ragnar had carried him on his back, like he never had when he’d been a child. They’d made it for miles, clear across the peninsula and into Brooklyn, until they’d been picked up on the outskirts of a little park by a pair of cops. They’d thrown them in the back of a paddy wagon, shut the doors, and left them in darkness to take them God knew where. He’d lost count of the twists and turns, stops and starts. He’d heard the honking of other cars, and a few times the scream of a train whistle, and as they’d lain there Ragnar had spoken to him. 

_“Once we get there, they’re gonna separate us. If you're smart, you’ll keep your mouth shut and they won’t hurt you. When I can I’ll come find you. No matter what they do to me, you have to act like a good boy, you hear me? Be a good boy. That way they won't feel threatened by you.”_

_“And what are they going to do to you?”_

His father had reached out blindly in the dark and yanked him against him, grabbed his head and turned it to place a hard kiss on his forehead. Before they could say anything else, the car had come to a screeching halt. The doors had been flung open, and the cops had dragged him and Ragnar out into the sunlight and through the front doors of a huge stone house. Aethelwulf had been there, waiting in the entrance hall, smirking in front of his men.

_“I’ve come to see your daddy, son.”_

_“I’m afraid he’s not at home.”_

_“Ah, shame. Well, that’s no matter. I’m sure he raised you to show your guests the_ **_proper hospitality_ ** _.”_

_“For Ragnar Lothbrok, the_ **_King of the Carolinas_ ** _? Oh, of course.”_

He’d raised a hand and his men had descended on Ragnar. 

He hadn’t fought back. He’d taken every punch with a grunt and groan and struggled back to his feet again, spitting blood out onto the polished marble floor, but he hadn’t fought back. 

He’d struggled in the grip of the man holding him up, wanting to tear apart the men beating his father, before Ragnar had motioned him to be silent, _to be a good boy._ So he relaxed, went slack in the man’s grip, hating himself more and more with every blow Ragnar suffered. 

Then there’d been the basement room, and the rats. They obviously hadn't known what to do with him, and hadn’t really cared one way or another, so after they’d dragged off his father they’d taken him to a basement room somewhere in the huge house and left him there chained to a radiator. For days. He’d lost count of how many. He hadn’t screamed or struggled, he’d been a _good boy._ Sometimes there was food, and sometimes there was not. The rats were always there though. 

They’d dragged him out of his cell once, for a short time. He’d seen his father, bloodied, bruised, and locked in a cage, speaking to an old man with a long white beard. He’d assumed that was Ecbert. 

The second time, two men had dragged him into a different basement room and dropped him onto a chair. He’d thought he’d been left alone until he heard a sound like the whine of an injured dog and his father had appeared out of the shadows. 

_“Listen to me boy, because we don’t have a lot of time. Ecbert is handing me over to Aelle, who’s gonna kill me.”_

_“If Aelle is going to kill you, then me and all of my brothers will seek for revenge and you know that.”_

_“Yes, of course I do. Oh, you must seek revenge, but not on Aelle. On Ecbert. Everyone will always underestimate you. You must make them pay for it. I saw what you did earlier, holding all of that anger in, and I'm proud of you. But now you need to let that anger out. Use your anger intelligently and you can make them pay for it. Be ruthless.”_

Ragnar had pulled off the heavy gold ring he’d worn for as long as he’d remembered and pressed it into his hand. And then, he’d been taken away. Yanked out of the room, dragged out of the house, and bundled onto a ship headed south like forgotten luggage. 

He’d counted the days this time. Six days. Six days of more rats and no food and scummy water and seasickness, until he was dropped in a lifeboat again. They’d rowed him up to the docks at Winfall, to where his brothers were waiting and he’d reached out to Sigurd and Ubbe like they were angels sent to bring him to the Promised Land. He’d never been happier to see them in his life. 

He didn’t remember making it home, to their big, half-empty house. He’d fallen unconscious on the way in the backseat of the car and nearly slipped into shock. The doctors had said it was a combination of the stress and the grief, the no food and bad water, the lack of sleep and the lingering seasickness - whatever it was, he’d caught a fever, and it would not let go. For five days he’d fought it, with Ubbe, Sigurd, Floki, and Helga taking it in turns to watch over him round the clock. Five days he’d lingered at Death’s door, dreaming of his father, before they'd finally brought him back. 

—————————————————————————————————————————————

The fleet spent the night out on the harbor, riding out the thunderstorm that did indeed roll over the city and then out to sea. It sent torrential rain against the _Kattegat_ and her sister ships, and while the peals of thunder doomed most of them to a restless sleep, the sea itself stayed relatively calm. Ivar was too consumed with the memory of the storm that nearly killed him to even make an attempt at rest, so the sight of a lightening sky and a red sunrise was a welcome relief. Their little fleet finished docking on the shores of the East River, right between the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges, just as the sun cleared the horizon.

This time they made no effort to hide, in fact they made themselves obvious to anyone who was looking. Bjorn filed the docking papers under the company name _Lothbrok Shipping, Ltd.,_ told the overworked harbormaster they were there to pick up a cargo from one of the city’s garment factories, and then…they waited. 

“Nothing’s gonna happen while the sun’s up,” Floki had assured them. “This is not the type of work for daylight.” So they relaxed. Caught up on some sleep. Bjorn spent the day with Harald and Halfdan, talking over business plans for an increased partnership between their two organizations once they got home. Ubbe and Hvitserk went ashore and disappeared into the crush of the Bowery, coming back that afternoon with dirty, disheveled clothes and satisfied grins plastered over their faces. Floki also braved the city's streets for a short while, begrudgingly heading down the gangplank and coming back less than an hour later with an amber necklace clutched in his fist. He scowled when he caught Ivar staring. 

“For Helga.” he growled. “Promised I’d get her something nice.” He spent the rest of the day on deck, re-cleaning his seemingly endless collection of pistols and glaring out the forest of buildings. 

Ivar also spent the day on the _Kattegat’s_ deck, preferring the heat of the sun and the breeze off the river over the city’s smells of rancid food, hot asphalt, and the sweat of too many bodies. Instead, he moved around the deck, chasing what shade he could, and read the newspaper. He’d managed to persuade a paperboy to come far enough up the gangplank to sell him a copy of that day’s _New York Post_ and had to fight hard to stop himself from laughing when he saw that day’s headline.

 

**PROMINENT BOSTON BUSINESSMAN FOUND DEAD IN GRISLY KILLING**

**AUTHORITIES AT A LOSS WHILE BOSTON MAYOR URGES CALM**

 

Sigurd came up on deck a little while later, hair still rumpled from a nap, and noticed Ivar sitting in the shade. Rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, he ambled over. 

“What’s that you’ve got there?” 

Ivar held up the paper to show him the front page, letting himself grin this time. Sigurd’s eyebrows shot up into his hairline, and slowly his expression shifted to match his brother’s. A grainy shot of Aelle’s warehouse surrounded by police cars and uniformed cops floated below the headline. 

“Mind if I borrow that when you’re done?”

—————————————————————————————————————————————

The sky was threatening another storm as their little army made their final preparations. The last few hours of daylight had been spent preparing - sharpening knives and hatchets, loading pistols and rifles and shotguns, packing up the extra supplies they’d need, making sure everyone knew their part of the plan. Now they were ready. It was time to go to war. 

Bjorn was standing by the gangplank as the last of their crew made it up to the deck. He had Ragnar’s old Springfield rifle slung across his back, a Colt .45 at each hip, and a set ofbrass knuckles glinted on one fist. 

“Thank you all for being here,” he called over the crowd, voice carrying across the docks. “We’ve come a long way to get here, and we couldn't have made it without your help, so for that my brothers and I thank each and every one of you. Tonight, we shall fight. Tonight, we fight in the name of our father, and with the Lord’s help, we shall overcome.” 

He turned and gestured to Floki, leaning against the rail beside him. 

“Floki, if you wouldn't mind leading us?”

The old mechanic didn’t seem surprised to be called upon, he just stepped forward and folded his hands with a serenity that Ivar envied. All around him, heads were bowed and hats removed.

“Lord!” Floki called out. “Help us to do what we must tonight. We ask that you watch over us in this, our time of need. Help us to avenge the brutal, sinful murder of your son, Ragnar Lothbrok. For he was a good man, whatever his faults. He was our father, our brother, our friend, and we ask your help to punish those who so wickedly took him from us. Give courage to our hearts, and strength to our bodies. Help us to come through this night and see another dawn, but if it is your wish that we should die this night, oh Lord, we ask that you forgive us our sins and all our past transgressions and hold us in your loving arms forevermore. In Jesus name we pray, Amen.” 

A chorus of “Amens” rippled out across the docks. Each of them made one final check of their gear, and then one by one they descended down the gangplanks, spreading out into the warren of streets running through the Lower East Side, disappearing into the night.

Ivar’s motorcycle was lifted over the side of the _Kattegat_ and down to the docks beside him with a block and tackle. He waved a thank-you to the handful of men who’d be staying behind to guard the boats, and draped himself over her handlebars. She started without a protest and he stroked his fingers down her polished chrome in thanks before gunning the engine and following after his brothers. The streets were darker here, and the few people he saw on the streets at that time of night hastily ducked into doorways or disappeared into alleyways at the sight of him and their little army. Ivar thought again of the story that Floki used to tell him, of the strange monsters of the Wild Hunt who came with the thunder to doom all who saw them, and chuckled to himself.If the people of New York wanted to think him a monster and flee from his presence, then by God tonight he would let them. 

—————————————————————————————————————————————

Contrary to their previous predictions, it was hours before they caught sight of Aethelwulf and his men. They spent the time waiting in the shadow of a garment factory, closed for the night, listening to the distant thunder get louder and louder. Ivar had to fight to keep himself from fidgeting. The buildings loomed so tall overhead it looked like they could collapse and bury him alive. He couldn’t see the stars. There wasn’t enough sky. There was barely enough _air_. 

“Where are they?” Ivar asked for the hundredth time. It was now well past midnight. “Maybe they’re not coming after all. Maybe we need to take the fight to them.”

Bjorn sighed. “Believe me when I say that they’ll get here. You don’t know enough Ivar. You haven’t seen enough. Ecbert has brave men who won’t take kindly to us encroaching on his territory. I’ve fought against them, you haven’t.”

“I can only see what my eyes tell me, Bjorn, and what I have seen is frightened people running before us, scurrying back to their holes like rats. That and this same damn empty street.” 

Ubbe rounded on him. “For once, why don’t you just listen to an older, wiser brother, hmm? Those people we saw running away earlier, they’re not the fighters we will be facing. They’re not the ones who’ll stay and fight to defend Ecbert’s little kingdom, hmm? Don’t be too eager.”

“They’ll protect their honor,” Sigurd mused. “For what is a man without his honor?”

“I don't know, you tell me brother,” Ivar shot back. 

“ _Shut up. The both of you,”_ Bjorn hissed, shrinking back into the deeper shadows of the factory’s front doors. “Someone’s coming.”

The sound of running footsteps got closer and closer, until they stopped just beyond the reach of the dim streetlight across the road. Ivar heard the harsh _caw_ of a raven and sighed, tension flowing out of his body. 

“One of ours,” Hvitserk said, raising his hands to answer the call. 

A blonde, bearded man appeared under the streetlight, breathing hard and beckoning frantically at the doorway. 

“What’s going on? What did you see?” Bjorn asked. 

“Aethelwulf….and some men….headed this way….coming east down Canal Street….”

“How many men did he have?”

The man shook his head, still gasping for breath. “Couldn’t get a good count….they saw me….but I think….at least fifty….on foot….”

Bjorn clapped the man on the back, nodding his thanks, and turned to Ubbe and Hvitserk. 

“Go tell the others.”

————————————————————————————————————————————

They caught sight of Aethelwulf’s men just a few blocks away. Ivar could see them moving through the streets perhaps a quarter of a mile off, going in and out of the weak pools of light cast by the streetlamps. Their army had formed a ragged line to block Canal Street, right outside the Centre Street subway station - impossible to miss. 

“Aethelwulf, look!” Ivar heard one of the New Yorkers call. Ivar had thought that the sight of the man who’d helped kill his father, who’d beaten Ragnar like a dog, would fill him with rage, but instead all he felt at the sight of Aethelwulf was a cool detachment. He was just another piece on the board. Ivar felt the man’s eyes on him and smiled, signaling to Floki. 

The skinny mechanic raised an old brass calvary bugle to his lips and gave a single blast. Ivar made sure to give Aethelwulf a little wave before he turned his motorcycle and followed his men into the dark. 

“After them!” he heard Aethelwulf roar from behind him. The army dashed down the block, before splitting in two at Baxter Street. Ivar and Floki took one half north, and Bjorn, Ubbe, Hvitserk, and Sigurd took the other half and headed south, each man sprinting for all they were worth until their footsteps were swallowed by the night, Ivar crouching low over his motorcycle to follow them. 

“ _Come on!.…Come on!_ ” he whispered to himself as he drove, squinting against the wind in his eyes. “ _Part two,_ _time for part two…_ ”

Ivar heard the second bugle call ring out as he turned the corner, following his group back west around the block and laughing with relief. The plan seemed to be working. 

By the time Ivar and his men got back to where they could see the fighting, the company they’d assigned to be led by Harald and Halfdan had already come up behind Aethelwulf’s men, shot half a dozen of his men in the back, and disappeared into the bowels of the Centre Street subway station. When Aethelwulf’s men tried to turn and go after them, Bjorn’s company had come up from the south and smashed into them from the side. 

“And there’s part three,” Ivar said, watching the chaos unfold from halfway down the block. Floki, standing next to his motorcycle and breathing hard, clutched at his side and glared at him. 

Aethelwulf’s and his men had scattered as the bullet started flying, diving for cover behind anything they could get to - parked cars, newsstands, vendor’s stalls - _anything_. They were too caught by surprise to think about mounting a counter attack, but Ivar could see Aethelwulf shouting and gesturing wildly at his men, trying to get them into some semblance of order. Until, the firing stopped, and Bjorn’s company melted away again. After a moment of silence, Aethelwulf came out from behind the car he’d been sheltering behind and stalked forward.

“Where did they go!?” Ivar heard him shout. “Where the **_hell_** did they go!?”

“Sir, there!” one of his men shouted, pointing at Ivar. He and his company had stopped halfway up Centre Street to watch the carnage unfold, clearly outlined against the flashes of lighting occasionally streaking across the sky. Ivar felt Aethelwulf’s eyes on him and gave him a mocking little bow this time. The prince of New York swore and grabbed a rifle from one of his men. 

Ivar turned to Floki at the bullet whizzed harmlessly by over his head. “Hmmm….Four blasts.” 

Floki rolled his eyes, but raised the horn to his lips again. “If you say so.” 

The last note had just finished echoing off the tenements by the time Aethelwulf had re-organized his men well enough to come after them. Ivar’s men retreated, disappearing again into the dark, dashing from cover to cover until one of Aethelwulf’s men saw Harald and Halfdan’s company begin to re-emerge from the subway tunnels. He turned to face this new threat, but then stopped himself. 

“ENOUGH!” Ivar heard him scream. “I’ll not be their fool or their dupe any longer! You say they left their ships by the Manhattan Bridge? Which way is that?” One of Aethelwulf’s men gestured to the east. “Then that’s where we’re going. If we can get there first and destroy their ships then they’ll be stuck here and we can deal with them on our own terms. But we have to move fast, and keep them behind us. Come on!” 

Dodging bullets from the men coming up the subway steps, Aethelwulf and his men dashed away down Canal Street, and Harald and Halfdan’s men let them go. 

“What are they doing? Where are they going?” Floki asked, turning to Ivar with a dumbfounded look on his face. 

“To the docks I imagine,” Ivar answered. 

Shock stretched out across Floki’s face. “To the boats. They're going for our boats. Oh you crippled bastard! You were right!” he shouted with joy, jumping over to wrap Ivar in a tight hug. “You were right! Oh you bloody mad genius, you were right!” 

—————————————————————————————————————————————

They didn’t get far. Bjorn’s company caught Aethelwulf’s men halfway through Manhattan Bridge Plaza, stepping out from behind the pillars of the enormous marble monument, hurling flaming Molotov cocktails towards them and following with knives and pistols drawn. Ivar could see the flames dancing merrily as he came with the last of their army to join the fight - the raw, cheap whiskey burned brighter than gasoline. Ivar caught a whiff of what smelled like frying pork and watched several of Aethelwulf’s men, their clothes and hair on fire, dash off into the night looking for something, anything to quench the flames. Aethelwulf was down when Ivar finally got close enough to join the fray, caving in the head of one of their men using a hatchet he’d picked up somehow, the scarlet blood catching the light of the fires as it flew threw the air. 

Most of the men on both sides had run out of bullets by now, so the fighting had changed to close quarters combat, lit by the dancing flames and the increasing flashes of lightning overhead - the smash of a rifle stock against a skull, the punch of a knife through the ribs, the snap of a crowbar against a man’s arm. Ivar saw Aethelwulf’s face crumple when he realized that reinforcements had come to cut off his men’s retreat. 

“Save yourselves!” he called out over the din of the fighting, watching as another one of his men took a knife to the neck. “Save yourselves! Go - save yourselves! _Retreat_!” 

The order to retreat was echoed by the survivors of Aethelwulf’s would-be army, and one by one they turned and fled for their lives, many of them clutching broken bones or gaping wounds as they scattered. A cheer went up from the Lothbrok’s army as the last of them struggled away, some of them firing shots into the air in celebration. Ivar saw Harald and Halfdan hugging each other, foreheads pressed together and eyes wild. Floki laughed and gave Ivar another wiry hug as he saw Hvitserk, Sigurd, and Ubbe appear out of the crowd. They were all covered in blood but seemed unhurt, screaming with joy as they barreled toward him. 

“We won!” Ubbe screamed as he crashed into Ivar, closely followed by Hvitserk, the two of them nearly pushing him off his motorcycle in their joy. It was a tangle of heads and arms for a while as his brothers climbed on top of his motorcycle with him, the three of them all trying to hug each other at once. Even Sigurd waded into the fray to give Ivar a brief, tight hug and a clap on the back. 

Then Bjorn arrived, looking for all the world like they’d lost instead of won a great victory, and the moment was over. 

“What are you so happy about?” he demanded as the clouds finally broke open and the first drops of rain began to descend. “It ain’t over yet.”


	7. The King is Dead, Long Live the King

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes: For those who know New York City, Ecbert’s house is situated at the corner of E 81st St. and 5th Ave., right across the street from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Its appearance is based off of Andrew Carnegie’s old mansion, which is now the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum on the Upper East Side. 
> 
> Jim Bottomley won the MLB’s National League Cy Young Award (for the best pitcher) in 1928. He played for the St. Louis Cardinals at the time. 
> 
> Warnings: Violence, gun violence, mentions of suicide, graphic descriptions of blood and gore, swearing

The rain kept falling, a steady silver downpour that quickly soaked them all to the skin and banished any lingering traces of the day’s heat. In the open air of the plaza, it cleaned the worst of the blood from their clothes and covered the paving stones around the fallen an ever expanding sea of red. It also did the job of keeping any potential passers-by firmly behind closed doors and making the dark of the night even deeper. Under the dim yellow glow of the streetlights around the plaza, Bjorn quickly detailed about a dozen of their able-bodied men to retrieve the bodies of their fallen and escort their wounded back to the relative safety of the docks and their ships. Aethelwulf’s men they would leave where they’d fallen - let the cops of New York think they’d indeed been killed by ghosts.

Oblivious to the rain and the lighting flashing overhead, oblivious to the quick, bustling activity around him as members of the Army worked to get the wounded onto makeshift stretchers or up on their feet, Ivar sat by himself, grinning like an idiot. His hands were shaking, trembling around the handlebars of his motorcycle. They were so close now. _Just one more._

The plan was for the Army to split in half for the march to Ecbert’s house on the Upper East Side, with Bjorn leading one half and Floki leading the other. If one group was stopped by cops or if Aethelwulf managed to regroup and counter attack then the other was sure to make it. They were taking no risks of Ecbert slipping through their fingers this time. 

Ivar paused for a moment in the open air of the plaza before following Floki’s company back into the dark maze of Lower Manhattan’s streets, taking a deep breath. The buildings in front of him still seemed too tall, still seemed to loom over him, threatening to collapse down on his head. The first leg of their route would even take them _underneath_ the elevated Bowery railway, meaning there wouldn’t even be _sky_. He couldn’t _see_ when he was in there, still felt _surrounded_ by the city, pressed in on all sides - but it was fine. He was going to be fine. He turned in his seat and looked back behind him at the scene of their great victory, at the bodies still scattered around the cobblestones. In the dim light they just looked like oddly shaped boulders, or perhaps strange sculptures to go along with the white marble monument rising up over the plaza, until a sheet of lightning lit up the night and brought everything into stark black and white focus. The crash of thunder that followed made him jump in his seat. 

**_“GET GOING”_** it seemed to say. 

“Hey Ivar! Ivar!” 

Hvitserk had come back for him and was waiting beneath one of the iron arches of the Bowery railway, arms up as if to say _“Well? Are you coming or not?”_

“Coming!” Ivar yelled, shaking himself out of his fears. He gulped and gunned his motorcycle across the plaza to join his brother, the tires spinning a sheet of red up behind him. He followed Hvitserk into the darkness under the railway and did not look back again. 

—————————————————————————————————————————————

It was a five mile slog through the rain to Ecbert’s house on the Upper East Side, up through the Bowery, past Union Square and Madison Square, and then straight north up 5th Avenue, stabbing into the heart of Manhattan. They quickly left the immigrant tenement houses behind, moving past shuttered garment factories and shops and into richer and richer neighborhoods. The streets stayed empty as they went, even the whores and pickpockets keeping out of the rain, but Ivar couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched. Maybe it was the dark, empty eyes of the buildings they passed, or the stone faces of the gargoyles peering down from rooftops and church facades, but the prickling feeling on the back of his neck refused to fade. The treetops of Central Park eventually appeared out of the gloom, and it was a welcome relief when Ivar and his company were able to dash across 59th Street and into the comforting embrace of the trees. They spent the final mile of the march surrounded by the smells of damp earth and wet leaves and growing things, and Ivar could feel his mind settling back down as they went, sharpening itself for the fight ahead. 

They met up with Bjorn’s company just south of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The dark, rainy night was beginning to shift towards a grey dawn, and the wet, white stone of the building shone in the growing light. While the rest of the Army took a short break to eat something and rest their legs, Floki, Ivar, and Hvitserk found Bjorn, Sigurd, and Ubbe huddled together underneath a massive old oak tree near the corner of the museum. 

“So Bjorn, what’s the plan? Where to next?” Hvitserk asked. 

“Yes Bjorn Ironside, what is the plan?” Harald slid out of the rainy dawn to join them, Tommy gun over his shoulder, Halfdan in tow. “As fine as this evening’s entertainment has been, I must confess that my brother and I are growing curious.” 

Halfdan bared his teeth in what he must have thought was a smile. “Yes, we are _most eager_ to continue.” 

Bjorn raised his eyebrows, turned, and pointed across the street at a black hulk of a building gradually taking shape against the slowly brightening sky, and the sight of it hit Ivar like a punch to the gut. “ _That_ is the plan.” 

Hvitserk’s jaw dropped. “Ecbert lives _there?_ ”

Floki sighed. “Yep.”

“Ugh.… _of course he does_.” 

The house stretching down the block before them was absolutely _enormous._ Bigger than anything back in Winfall by far. A four story monstrosity of red brick and gray stone stretching halfway down the block, it was set back from the street behind its own wrought iron fence, with a gate flanked by carved stone lions. Even from Ivar’s viewpoint nearly a quarter mile away it seemed to loom over all of the other houses around it, exuding an air of wealth, power, and quiet menace. Yet beyond its sheer size, something else seemed……off….about the house to Ivar. Even though it was getting on towards dawn, all of the windows were still black, staring out over the park like empty eyes. There wasn’t a light to be seen in any of them, and at minimum the house’s servants should have been up and getting ready for the day…… 

“So the plan is simple,” Bjorn said, breaking Ivar’s train of thought. “We need a team of men to take the front, quickly and quietly. There’s not a lot of cover around the front side of the house so we need to breach the gate, get up there, and get in the front door fast as we can, alright? Before some do-gooder has the chance to spot us and talk to someone they shouldn’t.” Bjorn glanced down at Ivar. “Will your bike make it up the steps?”

Floki answered for him, looking offended. “Of course it will make it up the steps!” he muttered. “Why wouldn't it!?”

Ivar barked out a laugh. “I’ll have to gun it to get her up and into the house, but she’ll make it. The front door’s definitely big enough.”

Bjorn cracked a brief smile before he continued. “Kitchen and delivery entrance off the alley _there_ that we’ll need to cover _,”_ he pointed, “and then there’s two doors around the back—”

“Three,” Floki said.

“Three? You sure?”

Floki held up a hand and wiggled three fingers. “Three doors out to the back. I’m sure.” 

“Right. So like Floki said, three doors out to the back. We send men down the block to surround the place as much as we can, they go up and over the fence, and hit the doors to stop Ecbert from slipping away. The garage is also around the back, if I remember correctly?” He glanced over and Floki nodded. “So we’ll need some men to hit that as well.”

“I bet he has some _excellent_ automobiles.” Halfdan said. 

“After brother, after.” Harald chided. 

“By all means, take first choice of the cars _once we’ve finished,”_ Bjorn said. “Now as I was saying, we break down the doors, meet in the entrance hall on the ground floor, and start searching the building.” He flicked his eyes over his younger brothers. “Keep an eye on the staircases and watch the doorways and corners - that’s how they surprise you and that’s how you get shot. Ecbert will either be still in his bedroom on the third floor, or in his study on the second floor, but we’ll definitely meet his men beforehand. Do what you need to with them, but _Ecbert is not to be harmed._ He is to be brought to me once he’s found. Everyone understand?” Bjorn glanced at each of them in turn, gaze lingering for a moment on Ivar, who scowled and looked away. He could still hear the inhuman sounds his father had made as Ecbert’s men beat him, see Ragnar’s swollen and bloody face in his mind’s eye, and now Ecbert was _not to be harmed?_ Then what was the fucking point of them even being there? 

“ _Ivar_.” Bjorn dragged his attention back. “ _Do you understand, brother?_ ” 

“Fine,” he spat, gripping the handlebars of his motorcycle so tightly his knuckles turned white. “As you say _brother_.” 

—————————————————————————————————————————————

The prickly feeling was crawling up the back of Ivar’s neck again as the Army moved out a few minutes later, the men silently crossing the rain-soaked streets and splitting up to take their various positions around the house. Ivar followed his brothers towards the front gate, waiting on his idling bike next to Floki as Bjorn beckoned Ubbe and Sigurd forward. As one, they each swung a sledgehammer at the gate’s lock, smashing it to pieces and letting their company flood through. The prickly feeling got worse as Ivar gunned his motorcycle after them, tires flinging up mud. He realized what was wrong as he watched his brothers and the rest of their company sprint towards the front door for all they were worth. It was too quiet. No one was firing at them. Not a single shot was being fired to defend this castle that Ecbert had built. _Where was everyone?_

The tidal wave of the company’s forward rush broke against the front of the house without a single shot being fired. Silently the men took up firing positions around the front stairs, lifting their guns as Ubbe and Sigurd again brought their sledgehammers to bear, nearly smashing the door off its hinges. His brothers ducked for cover while Ivar and the other men brought up their weapons and…..…nothing happened. No gunfire, no shouts, no screams. _Nothing_. Even the lights in the front hall were off. 

Slowly, each man turned to look at Bjorn. His brother was stony faced, staring at the empty doorway, looking disgusted at not being given the chance at another fight. He shook himself like an angry dog and raised both hands in a throwing gesture, urging them forward into the house. 

“ _Go_ ,” he simply said. 

With a cry, the men flooded in, Ivar backing up and then gunning his motorcycle to fly up the steps after them. He shot through the door and across the polished marble floors, knocking a vase of flowers off a table as he went, and skidded to a stop next to the grand staircase. He yanked his shotgun out of its holster as soon as he stopped, finger on the trigger and ready to fight, but there was no need. The entrance hall was utterly deserted. 

Men were already spreading out to cover the second floor landing and the doorways to the rest of the house, with a few of them, including Floki beginning to creep up the stairway. 

“Be careful…..this could be a trap,” Bjorn warned. 

A crash from the back of the house drew their attention and to a man each of them pivoted on the spot to aim at the doorway of what appeared to be the library. Harald and Halfdan appeared a few moments later, leading their company with Tommy Guns raised. For just an instant, Ivar saw a thought flash across Harald’s face - he and his brother had them cold, all five Lothbrok sons in one room, with a better gun in his hand and his own men at his back, so why not wipe them out and expand his territory again, right here, right now? Ivar saw the thought cross his face and tightened his grip on his shotgun. If it came down to it, he would have an excellent line of fire to blow Harald’s head off. Floki had made it up to the second floor landing and was sighting down the barrel of his pistol at Halfdan. Yet the moment passed, and the thought slid off Harald’s face, and just like that he had his oily smile back on. 

“It’s empty!” he proclaimed, lowering his gun and motioning for Halfdan to do the same. 

“Yes, they’ve gone!” Halfdan added. 

Bjorn had seen Harald’s thought too, and took just a little bit longer than necessary to lower the muzzle of his rifle. Ivar and his brothers followed suit. 

“Good to know,” Bjorn replied, teeth bared in a false smile. He cocked his head to speak to the men of his company behind him. “Spread out. Search the place,” he commanded, still eyeing Harald and Halfdan. “Find his study - it’s on the second floor. I want his papers, his account books, and his shipping schedules. Anything else you find, you can have. He’s got to have a wall safe somewhere.” 

The men cheered and began peeling away to loot the castle that they’d found themselves in. Ivar, finger still on his shotgun’s trigger, caught Halfdan’s eye as he turned to follow his brother back into the library. The would be king’s brother gave Ivar another one of his little mocking bows before disappearing around the corner. It crossed Ivar’s mind that, mad as he might be, there wasn't a lot that got past Halfdan the Black. 

Ivar shook himself free of the thought and threw a leg over his motorcycles’s seat, easing upright until his leg braces could bear his weight. He pulled his crutches out of their slot, threw his shotgun’s strap around his shoulders, checked his .45 at his hip, and hobbled off to find his brothers. 

—————————————————————————————————————————————

He found them in what seemed to be some kind of private bar or saloon towards the back of the house on the first floor. He could hear laughter, shouts and swearing coming from down the hall, followed by the bright, sharp sound of breaking glass. He stepped into the room and caught a glimpse of dark wood paneling, a Tiffany chandelier, and something small and sparkling moving rapidly towards his head. He ducked just in time and the crystal whiskey glass exploded against the wall behind him. He yelped and shook his head to rid his hair of any possible shards, turning towards the sound of booming laughter. 

_“What the fuck, Sigurd?”_ he growled. 

“Sorry—sorry Ivar!” his brother said. “I lost my grip—just a bad pitch. It was an accident, alright?” He held his hands out in mock surrender, but made no effort to wipe the grin off his face. 

“Want a try Ivar?” Ubbe asked, handing him the walking cane he’d been using as a bat and strolling over to the long oak bar to grab another glass. Hvitserk popped up from behind the bar to watch the show as Ubbe took his place across the room from Ivar. 

“Alright, Ubbe show me what you’ve got.” Ivar said, grinning to match his brother’s. He rested his weight on one crutch, hefting the other and gripping it alongside the walking cane, settling into his best imitation of a batter’s stance.

“Oh come on Ivar, really……” Sigurd began.

“Oh shut your mouth!” Ivar cut him off. “Besides, it’s not like he's Jim Bottomley.” 

“Oh _really_?” Ubbe said, raising his eyebrows at the challenge.

“Yes, _really.”_ Ivar shot back. 

“Alright little brother,” Ubbe said, winding up. “Here. We. _Go_.” 

The glass flew across the room, a sparkling blur. Ivar swung, missed, and it shattered against the wall behind him. Sigurd laughed and even Hvitserk giggled. 

Ivar stabbed at his brothers with the hand holding the cane. “I said _you shut your mouth_!” He turned back to Ubbe, beckoning to him. “Another, come on!”

Ubbe grinned and jogged over to the bar to grab another glass. Ivar settled into his stance and this time when Ubbe let it fly, he smacked it across the room and watched it explode in the empty fireplace. He shouted and threw up a hand in triumph, turning back towards Hvitserk and Sigurd to see the smug looks wiped off their faces, but stopped short at the sight of the strange man in the doorway. 

He was old, older than his father would have been if he were still alive. He wore a rumpled suit of pale beige and had a fashionably trimmed white beard, but he looked like he hadn’t slept in a week and like he also might be a bit drunk. As one, all three of his brothers drew their pistols and aimed at the man. He appeared unfazed at the sight, if anything he seemed a bit upset at all the noise as he slowly shuffled forward into the room. He all but ignored Hvitserk and Sigurd and his eyes slid off Ubbe after only a moment - Ivar’s oldest brother had pressed the muzzle of his pistol to the man’s sternum and was demanding to know who he was and what he was doing there. The man instead seemed more interested in the different piles of broken crystal lying around the room and the gaps in the liquor shelves from where Hvitserk had been rooting around in them and had knocked things over. 

Ivar was frozen on the spot, a rushing sound in his ears, whistling like the wind through a ship’s rigging. Ecbert, it was _Ecbert_. As his brothers closed in on the man who had signed their father’s death warrant, fingers on triggers and hammers pulled back, Ivar was thrown back into the basement room, hearing the gurgling noises of the radiator they’d chained him to, feeling the rats scampering across his cursed, useless legs, eyes straining for any bit of detail in the dark, forgotten room. It was _Ecbert_ who had made all of that happen, _Ecbert’s_ men and _Ecbert’s_ son who had beaten his father so badly one of his eyes had swollen shut, who had kept Ragnar in a cage like a rabid dog. Ivar could hardly breathe at the sight of him, he was so trapped in the memory. 

Until he remembered his father’s last words to him, _“Be ruthless.”_ The last time Ivar was in this house, he’d been a _good boy_ , like he’d been told, and it had nearly destroyed him. No, the time for being good was gone. Now was the time for vengeance. He wrenched himself away from the memories of cages and rats and hunger, pulled himself back into the room, and drew his .45. 

But before Ivar could put a bullet through his eye, Bjorn found them. 

“Stop!” he commanded, hurling himself into the room and shoving Ubbe’s gun down. “This is Ecbert. I order you to spare him. _We need him alive_!” 

Hvitserk and Sigurd lowered their guns, but Ivar didn’t care, he was going to drop the bastard where he stood or die trying—until Ubbe got in the way. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ivar with his .45 still extended as Bjorn dragged Ecbert out of the room. 

“Ivar..?” he said, cocking his head. “It’s fine. It’s just Ecbert.” He cracked a small smile and slowly pushed Ivar’s gun down.

_“I know,”_ Ivar growled, shoving his .45 back into its holster and picking up one of his crutches from where he’d dropped it. 

“Ahh…right. I forgot you saw him…last time you were here. Why didn't you say anything?” 

Ivar whirled on him. “Because I was going to _fucking shoot him_ Ubbe. Until _you_ got in the way.” 

—————————————————————————————————————————————

Ivar caught up to Bjorn and the rest of his brothers in the house’s dining room, with Ubbe trailing in behind him. There wasn’t much to loot in there, so the room had been left mostly untouched, although the old iron cage had been dragged out from wherever it had been stored and Ecbert shoved inside it. 

Ivar stopped short at the sight of him. “Why is he still alive?” he asked, incredulous. 

Bjorn tried to head him off. “Now Ivar….”

“Don’t you ‘Now Ivar’ me. Ecbert is as guilty as Aelle for what happened to father, so the same end should come to him. I’ve told you and told you brothers, _I was here._ I saw Ecbert hand father over to Aelle, so _why the hell is he still alive_?!”

“We all understand those feelings Ivar!” Bjorn shouted back at him. “No one is denying what you are saying! But sometimes, just sometimes we have to consider things beyond our feelings and think what is best for our family and our people!”

“I know what our people want Bjorn, and they want what I want.” Ivar threw himself into one of the dining chairs and mimed shooting a pistol at Ecbert’s head. The man didn't react, seeming to be content to let Ivar and Bjorn argue back and forth to decide his fate. 

“Ivar, right now we need to consider our position of strength. And use that to our advantage. Right now, he might still be useful to us.”

“Oh, you always like to complicate things Bjorn. You think it makes you look _so clever_.” 

Ubbe joined in from where he'd taken a seat next to Hvitserk. “And what if you kill Ecbert, Ivar, huh? What then?”

“Well then _he's dead Ubbe_.”

Bjorn still wasn't letting up. “Ivar, we are smack in the middle of enemy territory, hundreds of miles from home. How long will it be before some cop finds the bodies of Aethelwulf’s men and decides to come take a look around here, huh? How long before one of his lieutenants gathers up enough men to come and drive us away?”

“Exactly,” Ivar said, as though the answer should have been so simple. “We kill Ecbert, Blood Eagle him, and then we move on. We destroy Ecbert’s kingdom, make it so that he’s _never_ able to strike at us again, and then we go home. Why would we need to stay?”

Ubbe tried again to calm things down. “It’s what our father wanted Ivar. More than just whiskey running and dodging the law and fighting for the scraps from the table. _Legitimate businesses_ \- that's what he wanted. New cities with new opportunities for our people to live and work.”

Ivar rolled his eyes. “And we all know what happened.”

“Yeah but in in those days we did not hold a _man like this_ to ransom,” Hvitserk said, punctuating each word with a kick to Ecbert’s cage. “Father also didn't have such an army of men behind him. We do.” 

Ivar was floundering now, and he knew it. Out of desperation, he turned to Sigurd, leaning against the wall and observing the lot of them. 

“What about you Sigurd? You’ve been very quiet so far. I’m sure you have an opinion. You always do.”

Sigurd sighed, running a hand down his face. “I agree with you Ivar.”

_“Excuse me!?”_

“We should kill him. Blood Eagle him.”

“Finally. _Thank you_.”

“But I’m not sure, I’m not sure what they’re saying….”

By now Bjorn had just about had enough. “ _What I am saying_ is that we should do what our father always wanted!”

A gentle tapping noise pulled their attention to the cage. Ecbert had shifted around onto his knees, and was gripping the bars with gnarled fingers. 

“I’d like to speak,” he said, in a voice that to Ivar seemed far too soft and pleasant to belong to a man who had done such things. “I loved your father. He was my friend. And I know more than anything that he wanted to build a business here. Something to pass along to you boys once the time came.”

Ivar was taken aback. “And yet you killed all of our people. Everyone who came up here to get it off the ground.” 

The man nodded, seeming to be somewhat ashamed. “Yes, it’s true. I did. But now the tables have turned. We can make a new deal.”  

Bjorn ambled over, leaning over the cage and staring into the fallen king’s eyes. 

“What are you proposing?”

Ecbert cleared his throat and continued. “Well, as you say, it’s only a matter of time before you’re driven away from here. Without any legal right to a property or business of some sort you have no hope of staying. But I _own_ this city and I can give you that legal right.” Ivar could see with a sense of foreboding that the old man had them now. Ubbe and Hvitserk hopped off the table to come and stand next to Bjorn and even Sigurd came away from the wall to hear better as Ecbert continued.“I will give you the titles and deeds of _all_ of my properties in Manhattan east of 5th Avenue, including the docks. There's quite a few of them, and they do quite well, and because I ran them myself, no one will be able to question my right to sign them away. Even if they do, you seem to have enough men with you to hold onto them…. That’s my offer…. You should consider it.”

“What do you want in return?” Ubbe asked. 

The man seemed to be deflating before their eyes, wilting back against the bars of the cage. 

“I’ll only tell you that once you agree to my proposal.”

—————————————————————————————————————————————

They left him there in the cage as they split up to think about it. Ivar had toyed with the idea of having some men drag Ecbert in his cage down to the basement to be left in the dark for a while, but in the end decided against it. 

He instead hobbled back to the entrance hall to check on his motorcycle and was sitting astride it cleaning his shotgun when Bjorn found him. Ivar could feel his eyes on him as he rubbed at a stubborn patch of mud that had worked its way into the grip, but he was still furious that Ecbert was allowed to keep breathing, so he let the silence lie. 

“Not that I need to ask, but what is your opinion?” 

Ivar still refused to look at him. “About whether to accept this gift from Ecbert? Take his deal?”

“Yes.”

Ivar sighed and dropped his shotgun back into its holster, turning with a huff to face his oldest brother. 

“Well, since you do ask me, my opinion is that we should take the property.” Bjorn looked relieved, but Ivar wasn’t done. “But I have one condition - that Ecbert dies, and that I Blood Eagle him. Otherwise, there is no deal.”

Bjorn’s eyes flicked up and down his body. “You wouldn't be able to stand up long enough to Blood Eagle him.”

“I imagine me sitting.” Ivar sneered and reached back for his shotgun. “That is my condition, brother. Ecbert dies, and it’s my hand that gets to send him to hell.” 

—————————————————————————————————————————————

It took less than ten minutes for Ecbert to sign all of the paperwork. Ivar and his brothers convened in Ecbert’s study and watched as Ecbert sat behind his enormous desk and calmly and patiently signed his name to each document placed before him. A skinny, panicked looking notary was helping him — had been called to the house a few hours earlier to draft all the paperwork and then threatened with death and hellfire and damnation if he even _thought_ about going to the cops. Ivar thought the threats that Bjorn had rained down upon the man might have been enough to keep him from ever speaking _again_ — the man was practically hiding behind a chair the entire time Ecbert was signing. 

Finally it was done. Ecbert placed the last sheet onto what had become a very fat stack of papers and pushed them all across the desk and into Bjorn’s hands. 

“Bjorn Lothbrok, son of Ragnar…congratulations. You and your brothers have just become very rich men. I wish you luck.”

Bjorn nodded and folded up the papers. Each of them got to their feet to leave, yet when Hvitserk made to take Ecbert’s arm and lead him out of the room after them, the old man raised a hand. 

“Wait — just wait, if you wouldn’t mind. Might I have a final moment alone, here by myself?” 

Hvitserk glanced at Bjorn, clearly caught off guard at the request. 

“It’s fine. Let him be. I’ll watch him.” 

Hviterk shrugged headed out the door after Ubbe and Sigurd. Ivar took a bit more time navigating on his crutches around all of the scattered chairs and so was the last one out the door. He was halfway down the hallway before he heard the gunshot. His eyes going wide, he pivoted as fast as he could and hobbled back down the hallway towards the door, panic rising in his veins, until Bjorn opened the door and stepped out. 

“What’s going on!? What the hell happened?” Ivar heard running footsteps coming up behind him.

“Don’t worry about it Ivar.” 

“What the fuck does that mean, ‘Don’t worry about it?’ I heard a shot. What happened? _Where is Ecbert_?” 

“Ecbert’s not a problem anymore.”

Ivar felt his stomach drop. The rushing sound was back in his ears. Somehow he shoved Bjorn out of the way and threw the study door open. What was left of Ecbert was sitting slumped over his desk, a small ivory handled pistol held loosely in one hand and a neat, round hole in his temple steadily leaking blood. 

The sound that ripped out of Ivar’s lungs was hardly human. Blinded by rage, he ripped his .45 out of its holster and fired it into what used to be Ecbert’s head until he ran out of bullets.

—————————————————————————————————————————————

The decision was made to spend the night in Ecbert’s castle of a house before deciding on a further course of action in the morning. There was certainly room enough to fit all of them, the wine cellar and liquor cabinet was full to bursting, the kitchen and pantry was well stocked, and if they propped the front door back in place and kept the curtains closed, with a good team of sentries standing watch they should be fine. 

The entire army crowded into the enormous dining room that evening. They dragged tables and chairs in from the other rooms until everyone had a seat, and got to work 

cracking open bottles and devouring Ecbert’s imported food. Ivar was sitting with his brothers at the main table, and doing a good job of drowning his disappointment in a glass of Scotch when Bjorn got up to speak.

“Friends!” he shouted, quieting the mass of people milling around. “No one will ever be able to doubt what we have achieved here! Practically an _army_ of all of our people and kin! Together we have defeated not one, but _two Yankee kings_!” That got a rousing cheer before Bjorn was able to continue. “For us, the sons of Ragnar, our first duty was to avenge our father’s death, and that we have done, but we have also achieved my father’s dream. The legal right to properties _here_ in Manhattan — legitimate businesses for us to grow rich off of! It is up to all of you to see them thrive!” Another cheer. “I myself will not be here to see what you make of them. My fate will take me elsewhere. I always knew I would have to return to Texas, and Mexico, and South America beyond that, but my brothers will be here for you! Cheers!” 

The men toasted Bjorn in return, all except for Ivar. 

“I will be here, but not to settle down and run a shop. Who wants to be a shop clerk now, hmm? We have this army of men, and we should use it! There is so much more we could do - so much more territory we could take! Those of you who feel like I do, you should come with me. And those of you who don’t, ask yourself, who can stand in our way now!?”

Now it was Ivar’s turn to be cheered on, until Ubbe pulled him back down to earth. 

“You cannot lead the men Ivar.”

“I don’t want to Ubbe,” he snarled back at him. “All I’m saying is that for those who are still brave enough to take what they want and make something of themselves, I will lead them. You can put on an apron and stay behind a counter if you want to.”

“That would take a great man Ivar,” Hvitserk said. “Stay here, help us defend what we’ve got.” 

Ivar took another drink, eyeing his brother over the rim of his glass, one of the few survivors from the bar. “That doesn't sound like you, oh dear brother of mine. The Hvitserk I know, he loves a real fight, he's a real man. What you just said, that’s just not our way.” Ivar gulped at his Scotch again before he turned to the crowd. “Who among you will follow me?,” he cried. “Who will follow me into this fight, for the love of glory and God?!”

The men cheered again, louder this time, but Sigurd was shaking his head. 

“Don’t do this Ivar…we are all sons of Ragnar, we have to stick together!”

Ivar slammed his glass down and gave his brother a mocking smile. “Frankly, dear Sigurd, I don’t care what you say. The truth is I wouldn’t even piss down your throat even if your lungs were on _fire_.”

Sigurd smiled back at him. “Well maybe that's because you’re not really a man, are you Boneless?”

Ivar’s knuckles whitened as he made a fist on the tabletop and he growled low in his throat as Sigurd continued to glare at him from across the table. Bjorn ignored them both. 

“So, who is going to stay and look after our new properties?” he called over the crowd. “Harald, perhaps you or your brother?”

The gold-toothed man lifted his bottle of champagne. “I would like to stay Bjorn, but I’m afraid I have other plans. Cheers.” The crowd toasted with him and then Halfdan rose to speak, swaying slightly on his feet. 

“I myself, I will come with you Bjorn, if you’ll let me. Always wanted to see old Mexico.” 

Bjorn left his seat and sauntered over to Halfdan to shake his hand. “Of course, I’d be glad to have you on my crew.” He turned back to regard Ivar and his brothers at the main table with a sardonic eye. “It seems the only thing that kept the sons of Ragnar together was the death of their father.” 

“Oh poor Bjorn,” Ivar spat. “It is _you_ who wants to break us apart. It is you who wants to go away to sunny places. Everyone else can follow me.” 

Sigurd shook his head, laughing at him. “ _I_ do not want to follow you Ivar. You are _crazy_. You have the mind of a _child_.” 

“And all you do it play _music_ Sigurd. What use are you?”

“I’m just as much a son of Ragnar as you are!”

Ivar made a tut-tut noise with his tongue. “I’m not so sure. As far as I remember, Ragnar didn’t play the guitar. And he certainly didn’t offer his ass to _other men._ ” 

“Oh you make me laugh. Just like when you crawl around like a baby.”

Ivar rammed a fist into the tabletop. _“SHUT YOUR MOUTH.”_

“Oh _enough_!” Bjorn called from across the room. 

“This has nothing to do with you!” Ivar shouted back. 

“What’s the matter Ivar, can’t take it?” Sigurd taunted. He stood up and drained his glass, slamming it back down to the tabletop. 

“Ivar, do not listen to him,” Ubbe warned, putting a hand on his shoulder, but Ivar shook him off as Sigurd continued. A growing numbness was spreading through his body, and the rushing sound was coming back to his ears.

“No, I guess it must be hard for you, now that your Mama’s dead. Knowing that she's the only one who ever really loved you.” 

Ivar moved before anyone could stop him, before he could even stop himself. He vaguely registered Ubbe shouting at him, telling him to stop, but he definitely heard the gunshot. Sigurd jerked once and then slowly looked down, raising a hand to the growing spot of blood now blossoming from the ragged hole in his ribs. For a moment he looked just as shocked as Ivar. Then his face morphed into a snarl, and he fumbled his own pistol out of its holster, taking shaky steps around the table and raising it to point right at Ivar’s head. Ivar grabbed for his crutches as Sigurd got closer, doing whatever he could to get away from the table, to _get away,_ but in the end he didn’t have to. Sigurd collapsed just a few feet from Ivar, and the sound he made as he hit the floor was like the closing of a tomb. 


End file.
